t and seat themselves on
the point of a steep rock by the wayside. When a wanderer came by they
would begin to talk to him in this fashion: "Wait a bit, neighbor;
first smoke a pipe!" The traveler would look around in astonishment,
to see where the voice came from, and would become very much
frightened. If he did not happen to be exceptionally brave, he would
begin to perspire with terror, and run away. Then the fox would laugh:
"Hi hi!"

Once a farmer was plowing on the side of the mountain. When he looked
up he saw a man with a straw hat, wearing a mantle of woven grass and
carrying a pick across his shoulder coming along the way.

"Neighbor Wang," said he, "first smoke a pipeful and take a little
rest! Then I will help you plow."

Then he called out "Hu!" the way farmers do when they talk to their
cattle.

The farmer looked at him more closely and saw then that he was a
talking fox. He waited for a favorable opportunity, and when it came
gave him a lusty blow with his ox-whip. He struck home, for the fox
screamed, leaped into the air and ran away. His straw hat, his mantle
of woven grass and the rest he left lying on the ground. Then the
farmer saw that the straw hat was just woven out of potato-leaves; he
had cut it in two with his whip. The mantle was made of oak-leaves,
tied together with little blades of grass. And the pick was only the
stem of a kau-ling plant, to which a bit of brick had been fastened.

Not long after, a woman in a neighboring village became possessed. A
picture of the head priest of the Taoists was hung up in her room,
but the evil spirit did not depart. Since there were none who could
exorcise devils in the neighborhood, and the trouble she gave was
unendurable, the woman's relatives decided to send to the temple of
the God of War and beg for aid.

But when the fox heard of it he said: "I am not afraid of your Taoist
high-priest nor of your God of War; the only person I fear is your
neighbor Wang in the Eastern village, who once struck me cruelly with
his whip."

This suited the people to a T. They sent to the Eastern village, and
found out who Wang was. And Wang took his ox-whip and entered the
house of the possessed woman.

Then he said in a deep voice: "Where are you? Where are you? I have
been on your trail for a long time. And now, at last, I have caught
you!"

With that he snapped his whip.

The fox hissed and spat and flew out of the window.

They had been telling stori