One day, Grandpa was riding a sleigh with fish from the fair. The frost is cracking, the snow is crunching, the horse is trotting. And Grandpa is sitting on the sleigh, covered with frozen fish, and he is also carrying a sack full of it. He is cheerful, because the trade was successful.
And on the road ahead, a fox-sister lies as if dead. Her paws are stretched out, her eyes are closed, she won't even move her tail. The grandfather was delighted: "I'm lucky - she'll be a collar for my grandmother!" He picked up the fox, threw her into the sleigh on the fish itself, and drove the horse away.
And the fox was just what was needed. She lies on the fish and quietly, little by little, throws the fish out of the sledge - one, two, three. And in the end she jumped out herself. She scooped up the fish and dragged it to her hole. Grandfather came home: "Grandmother, come out, I brought you a gift!" And the grandmother came out - there was neither a fox nor a fish on the sledge.
Meanwhile, the fox sits near its hole, savoring the fish. Then it sees a gray wolf running through the forest, hungry and thin. «Little fox, where did you get so many fish?» «Oh, brother, I caught them in the river.» «And how did you catch them?» «And you sit by the hole, dip your tail in the water, and say: catch fish, small and big! You will sit all night - in the morning your tail will be full of fish.».
The foolish wolf believed the fox. He ran to the hole, dipped his tail into the icy water, and sat there, muttering: "Catch, fish, big and small! Catch, fish, big and small!" He sat for an hour, for two. The frost crackled, the river froze. And the fox giggled from behind the bush, and even sang softly: "Freeze, freeze, wolf's tail, freeze, freeze, wolf's tail!"«
By morning the wolf's tail was so frozen in the ice that you couldn't move it. And the wolf was sitting there, thinking that he had caught such a heavy fish. "Oh, how many fish I caught!" he was happy. And then at dawn the young women came running with buckets for water. They saw the wolf near the hole and as they jumped up they shouted: "Wolf, wolf! Hit him, he's sitting in the middle of the village!"«
They grabbed buckets and rockers, and rushed at the wolf, beating him wherever he went. The wolf struggled with all his might, but his tail broke off and he was left frozen. The wolf ran away into the forest, tailless, all beaten up, barely alive. "Oh, I'll teach the fox a lesson!"«
Meanwhile, the fox climbed into the peasant's hut - into a tub of dough. She stuck her head in the dough, and ran out into the forest. She walked as if beaten, her head covered in white, her eyes sad. A wolf limped towards her. "Little fox sister, what's wrong with you?" "Oh, brother, I was beaten so much that my brains came out of my head, look - they're coming out!"«
The wolf felt sorry for the fox. He forgot about his wrong. "Sit down, little sister, on me, I'll carry you home." The fox sat on the wolf's back, wrapped its paws around her. The wolf carried her through the forest, limping, because he himself was barely alive.
And the fox sits, wags its tail and hums softly to itself: «The beaten one brings the unbeaten one, the beaten one brings the unbeaten one!» «What are you saying, little sister?» asks the wolf. «But I, brother, say — the beaten one brings the beaten one, we both, poor things, have suffered.» «Yes-yes, sister, yes-yes.» And so the wolf reached her hole. And the fox jumped into the hole, and called out from there: «Goodbye, you stupid gray one, thank you for the trip!» The wolf looked back — and the fox’s trail had already cooled. And so he went home, having learned: don’t trust everyone, especially a cunning fox.
💛 Listen to whomever you trust - and listen wisely.