At last she crawled to the edge of the room and slid aside the screen to get away from the pests. The moment the door was opened they swooped down upon her, picked her up, and flew away with her. Since then nothing has ever been heard of the old woman.
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The tale of "The Straw Ox" as given in Cossack Fairy Tales, by R. Nesbit Bain, is one of the masterpieces among folk stories. It is of the accumulative type, winding up rapidly to the point where the old couple have secured, through the straw ox, all the raw material needed for comfortable clothing. Then comes the surprising release of the captured animals under promise to make contributions, each in his own way, to the welfare of the poverty-stricken couple. And then, the greatest surprise of all, the quick unwinding of the plot with the return of the grateful animals according to promise. "And the old man was glad, and the old woman was glad," and we are glad for their sake, and also for the sake of the bear and the wolf and the fox and the hare.
THE STRAW OX
There was once upon a time an old man and an old woman. The old man worked in the fields as a pitch-burner, while the old woman sat at home and spun flax. They were so poor that they could save nothing at all; all their earnings went in bare food, and when that was gone there was nothing left. At last the old woman had a good idea: "Look now, husband," cried she, "make me a straw ox, and smear it all over with tar."
"Why, you foolish woman!" said he, "what's the good of an ox of that sort?"
"Never mind," said she, "you just make it. I know what I am about."
What was the poor man to do? He set to work and made the ox of straw, and smeared it all over with tar.
The night passed away, and at early dawn the old woman took her distaff, and drove the straw ox out into the steppe to graze, and she herself sat down behind a hillock, and began spinning her flax, and cried: "Graze away, little ox, while I spin my flax. Graze away, little ox, while I spin my flax!"
And while she spun, her head drooped down and she began to doze, and while she was dozing, from behind the dark wood and from the back of the huge pines a bear came rushing out upon the ox and said: "Who are you? Speak, and tell me!"