"It will just be a wee bannock," says she.
"I could eat the half of it," says he.
"And I could eat t'other," quoth she.
Then they tried to grip it; but the wee bannock tried dodging. And the goodman and the goodwife tumbled against each other in the dark and grew angry.
"Cast your breeches at it, man!" cries the goodwife at last. "What's the use of standing staring like a stuck pig?"
So the goodman cast his breeches at it and thought he had smothered it sure enough; but somehow it wriggled out, and away it was, the goodman after it without his breeches. You never saw such a race—a real clean chase over the park, and through the whins, and round by the bramble patch. But there the goodman lost sight of it and had to go back all scratched and tired and shivering.
The wee bannock, however, trundled on till it was too dark even for a wee bannock to see.
Then it came to a fox's hole in the side of a big whinbush and trundled in to spend the night there; but the fox had had no meat for three whole days, so he just said, "You're welcome, friend! I wish there were two of you!"
And there were two! For he snapped the wee bannock into halves with one bite. So that was an end of it!