When Tom saw that huge lion he got frightened and ran up the tree. Now the bear saw Tom running up the tree, and he got frightened and tumbled head over heels down the tree on to the table with Tom after him, who, being frightened, ran into the bush. There the wolf and the hare were crouching, hidden away. No sooner did they see Tom than off they dashed in a fright. Tom ran back to the vixen, who was sitting at the table thinking with great satisfaction how they had all run away out of fear of Tom.
She embraced him, and they sat down alone to the banquet and enjoyed themselves, no one disturbing them.
In Krauss, No. 3, there is a story parallel yet not identical with it. In the South Slavonic, a cat, together with a dog, a duck and a gander, defeats the wolf, fox, bear and wild pig arrayed against them in battle. Tom contributes most to the victory by sudden attacks on the ear of the hidden pig, and frightening the bear in the tree by climbing up in fear, etc. In other respects the stories disagree.
The setting is entirely different. The wolf challenged to combat the dog, who had betrayed him on two occasions, and each one brought his contingent to the appointed place of battle. The dog brought his friends of the courtyard, and the wolf his of the forest, and the battle ended in the discomfiture of the latter as mentioned above.
Another version is found in Haltrich (No. 82), in which a cat feeds on the carcase of a horse. It is seen successively by the fox, the wolf, the bear and the wild pig, who get frightened by the sight of a small, wild beast, which had killed an animal many times their size and was eating it.
The cat runs after them by mere chance, and manages to bite the pig’s ear and frighten the others to such an extent that they are still running, all except the wolf, who has fallen on a pointed stick and got impaled.
Among the Cossack Tales (W. Bain, London 1894, p. 130 ff.) there is a story similar, not quite identical.