This is a parallel to the story of the “Gnat and the Lion.” Among the South Slavonic Tales, (Krauss, No. 12) we find another parallel to it, though differing in some details. A lion was continually boasting of its strength. One day a tiger, tired of his boasting, said to him:
“You wait until you meet a man and see what strength is.”
One day, as they were walking, a young boy passed along, and the lion asked whether that was a man.
“No,” replied the tiger, “that is a man that is to be.”
Shortly afterwards an old woman passed, and the lion asked whether that was a man. “No,” replied the tiger, “that is one who has made men.”
At last a hussar passed. The tiger said, “This is a man.”
The hussar drew near, shot at the lion, and, quite dazed, it ran away.
The hussar overtook him, and drawing his sword wounded him in many places. The lion escaped and said afterwards, “When he blew at me it was bad enough, but how much worse was it, when he pricked me.”
Another version from the inhabitants of Transylvania is found in Haltrich D. Volksmärchen a. d. Sachsenlande i. Siebbrgn, Wien 1877 (No. 86). Here it is the wolf who boasts, and the fox tells him that there is something much more powerful than he is and that is man. The wolf asks the fox to show him man. An old man passes, the fox says, “This was a man.”