How the Fox Was Taught a Lesson
The forest animals could find no peace from the fox: she would outsmart one, deceive another, snatch a tasty morsel for herself here, and mock someone there for the amusement of the whole forest.There wasn’t a single animal in the area who hadn’t suffered because of her. And no one could figure out how to teach the scoundrel a lesson.
But then the monkey thought and thought, made faces, puffed, and finally came up with a way to punish the fox. Overjoyed, she did a somersault, jumped down from the tree, and told everything to the hare who lived in a burrow beneath the tree. The hare listened and blinked his eyes.
And if a hare blinks his eyes, it means he doesn’t quite believe.
“Let’s go find the fox,” said the monkey. “You’ll sit to the side and see everything with your own eyes.” The monkey found the fox, bowed to her, and asked:
“Most honorable one, do you know what the most delicious thing in the world is?” Hearing about something delicious, the fox pricked up her ears.
“The most delicious? That’s interesting,” she said. “What is the most delicious? Do you know?”
“I only just learned today that the most delicious thing in the world is horse meat. It’s a pity, though, that it’s very hard to get. If you want to try this meat, you first need to tie your tail to the horse’s tail…”
“Why?” asked the fox.
“If the horse isn’t tied, it will run away, and you won’t catch it!” replied the monkey, then quietly added:
“Oh, what a horse I just saw! It’s lying in the meadow, asleep…”
After listening to the monkey, the fox first thought for a moment, then pretended to be indifferent:
“I’ll have to check if it’s really that delicious! We’ll talk about this later, but for now, don’t tell anyone anything!”
And with a swish of her long tail, the fox ran off. But she didn’t run far. The monkey climbed up a tree and saw the fox quietly sneaking across the meadow toward the sleeping horse. The horse had worked hard all day, was very tired, and so was sleeping soundly. The fox crept up to it and carefully tied her tail to the horse’s tail. Then she picked a particularly juicy spot and sank her teeth into the horse’s flank.
The horse was having a sweet dream at the time, but feeling a sharp pain, it instantly jumped to its feet and, without understanding what was happening, bolted across the field…
As it ran, it shook off the fox and dragged her through the grass—after all, the fox’s tail was tightly tied to the horse’s.
Oh no! This wasn’t so tasty after all! The fox didn’t know how to save her skin, but she also couldn’t bear to part with her luxurious tail.
All this time, the monkey watched the fox from the tree. Overjoyed, she clapped her hands and jumped high on the branch. She jumped and jumped, but suddenly lost her footing and fell! She hit the ground so hard that a big red bump popped up on her bottom!
The hare, watching all this, laughed so hard, so uproariously, that he even split his upper lip.
And so, from that day to this, the monkey has a red bottom, the hare has a split upper lip, the horse never dares to sleep lying down and only sleeps standing up, and the fox has brown spots on her red fur—a reminder of how the horse dragged her across the ground that day.
Let this tale teach you something, too. Know that evil will be repaid with evil.
Never forget danger, even in your dreams. Rejoice in good fortune in moderation, or you might stumble.
And if you start to laugh too hard, remember the hare with the split lip!
More fairy tales
