replied the ox.
“Oh,” said the fox, “I need some tar to smear my coat so that the dogs cannot catch me.”
“Help yourself,” said the ox.
The fox put up his paws to take the tar, and his paws stuck fast. He pulled and he tugged, and he tugged and he pulled, and the more he pulled and tugged, the faster he stuck, and he could not get away.
Then the ox dragged the fox to the old house on the edge of the forest.
When the old woman came back with her apron full of flax and saw that the straw ox had gone she ran home as fast as she could. There stood the ox with the fox stuck fast to him.
“Husband, husband! Come here at once!” she cried. “The ox has brought home a fox; what shall we do?”
So the old man came as fast as he could, pulled the fox off the ox, tied him up, and threw him into the cellar.
The next morning when the woman came back with her apron full of flax and saw that the ox had gone and she had run home as fast as she could, there stood the ox with a rabbit stuck fast to him.
And the old man threw the rabbit into the cellar.