“What’s the matter?” the woodsmen asked.
For a few moments the Fox pretended to be too overcome with emotion to speak. Then he said:
“My poor lads, don’t you know that the King is coming with a great force to destroy the Worm and all his people?”
The woodsmen were simple fellows and this news threw them into great consternation.
“Is there no way for us to escape?” they asked.
The Fox put his paw to his head and thought.
“Well,” he said at last, “there is one way you might escape and that is by telling every one who asks you that you are the Mighty Mikko’s men. But if you value your lives never again say that your master is the Worm.”
“We are Mighty Mikko’s men!” the woodsmen at once began repeating over and over. “We are Mighty Mikko’s men!”
A little farther on the road the Fox met twenty grooms, dressed in the same blue smocks, who were tending a hundred beautiful horses. The Fox talked to the twenty grooms as he had talked to the woodsmen and before he left them they, too, were shouting:
“We are Mighty Mikko’s men!”