The Fox and the Wolf
A Russian Fable
nce upon a time there was a fox so shrewd that, although he was neither so fleet of foot, nor so strong of limb, as many of his kindred, he nevertheless managed to feed as comfortably as any of them.
One winter's day, feeling rather hungry, he trotted out of his lair to take a look round. The neighbouring farmers guarded their hen-roosts so carefully from his depredations that a nice fat hen was out of the question, and the weather was too cold to tempt the rabbits out of their snug warren. Therefore Mr Fox set his wits to work and kept his eyes open for what might come along.
After a while, as he slunk along the bottom of a dry ditch, he descried in the distance an old man driving a cart. This was Truvor, the fisherman, who, since two or three days of December sunshine had melted the ice, had had a good catch of fish in the lake by the mountain-side.
"Aha!" said the fox to himself, "I should relish a dinner of fine, fresh trout. Truvor is far too selfish to share them with me, so I will have them all."
To achieve the purpose in view, he laid himself flat in the road over which the fisherman must pass and pretended to be dead. The fisherman beheld him with surprise when he drew near, and jumping from his seat poked his sleek sides with his whip. The fox did not move a muscle, and Truvor decided that he had been frozen to death by the cold of the preceding night.
"I will take him home to my wife," he remarked, as he flung the limp body into his cart. "His coat will make a very nice rug for our parlour, and she can use his brush to dust with."