“Well it is to be a man!” exclaimed his wife. “I may toil all day without making so much; but you go but out one day of your whole life for one moment of time, and straightway you find all this wealth.”
When the man heard these words, he took courage and thought he should be fit to find better fortune still; so he said to his wife, “Give me now only a good horse and clothes meet, and a dog, and a bow and arrows, and you shall see what I can do.”
The woman was glad to hear him show so much resolution, so she made haste and gave him all the things that he required, and added a thick felt cloak to keep out the rain, and a cap for his head, and helped him to get on his horse, and slung his bow over his shoulder.
Thus he rode out over many a broad plain, but without purpose or knowledge of whither he went, nor did he fall in with any living creature whatever for many days. At last, riding over a vast steppe, he espied at some distance a fox.
“Ha!” he exclaimed, “there is one of my friends of last time. To be sure, there is no sheep’s paunch of butter this time, but if I could only kill him his skin would make a nice warm cap.”
As he had never learnt to draw a bow, his arrows were of no service, so he set his horse trotting after the fox; but the fox got away faster than he could follow, and took refuge in the hole of a marmot[3].
“Now I have you!” he cried, and, dismounting from his horse, he took off all his clothes to have freer use of his limbs and bound them on his saddle; the dog he tied to the bridle of the horse, and stopped the mouth of the hole with his cap; then he took a great stone and endeavoured with heavy blows on the earth to crush the fox.
But the fox, taking fright at the noise, rushed out with such impetus that it carried off the cap on its head. The dog, seeing it run, gave chase, and the horse was forced to follow the dog, as they were both tied together; so off he galloped, carrying on his saddle every thing the man had in the world, and leaving him stretched on the ground without a thread of covering.
Getting up, he wandered on to the banks of a river which formed the boundary of the kingdom of a rich and powerful Khan. Going into this Khan’s stable, he laid himself down under the straw and covered himself completely, so that no one could see him. Here he was warmed and well rested.
As he lay there the Khan’s beautiful daughter came out to take the air, and before she went in again she dropped the Khan’s talisman and passed on without perceiving her loss. Though the bauble was precious in itself for the jewels which adorned it, and precious also to the Khan for its powers in preserving his life[4], and worthy therefore to claim a reward, the man was too indolent to get up out of the straw to pick it up, so he let it lie.