“Oh!” said the bear, “stuffed with straw and trimmed with tar, are you? Then give me of your straw and tar, that I may patch up my ragged fur again!”
“Take some,” said the ox, and the bear fell upon him and began to tear away at the tar.
He tore and tore, and buried his teeth in it till he found he couldn’t let go again. He tugged and he tugged, but it was no good, and the ox dragged him gradually off, goodness knows where. Then the old woman awoke, and there was no ox to be seen. “Alas! old fool that I am!” cried she, “perchance it has gone home.” Then she quickly caught up her distaff and spinning-board, threw them over her shoulders, and hastened off home, and she saw that the ox had dragged the bear up to the fence, and in she went to her old man. “Dad, dad!” she cried, “look, look! the ox has brought us a bear. Come out and kill it!” Then the old man jumped up, tore off the bear, tied him up, and threw him in the cellar.
Next morning, between dark and dawn, the old woman took her distaff and drove the ox into the steppe to graze. She herself sat down by a mound, began spinning, and said:
“Graze, graze away, little ox, while I spin my flax! Graze, graze away, little ox, while I spin my flax!” And while she spun, her head drooped down, and she dozed. And, lo! from behind the dark wood, from the back of the huge pines, a gray wolf came rushing out upon the ox and said:
“Who are you? Come, tell me!”
“I am a three-year-old heifer, stuffed with straw and trimmed with tar,” said the ox.
“Oh, trimmed with tar, are you? Then give me of your tar to tar my sides, that the dogs and the sons of dogs tear me not!”
“Take some,” said the ox. And with that the wolf fell upon him and tried to tear the tar off. He tugged and tugged, and tore with his teeth, but could get none off. Then he tried to let go, and couldn’t; tug and worry as he might, it was no good. When the old woman woke, there was no heifer in sight. “Maybe my heifer has gone home!” she cried; “I’ll go home and see.” When she got there she was astonished, for by the paling stood the ox with the wolf still tugging at it. She ran and told her old man, and her old man came and threw the wolf into the cellar also.
On the third day the old woman again drove her ox into the pastures to graze, and sat down by a mound and dozed off. Then a fox came running up. “Who are you?” it asked the ox.