and also for the sake of
the bear and the wolf and the fox and the hare.

THE STRAW OX

There was once upon a time an old man and an old woman. The old man
worked in the fields as a pitch-burner, while the old woman sat at home
and spun flax. They were so poor that they could save nothing at all;
all their earnings went in bare food, and when that was gone there was
nothing left. At last the old woman had a good idea: "Look now,
husband," cried she, "make me a straw ox, and smear it all over with
tar."

"Why, you foolish woman!" said he, "what's the good of an ox of that
sort?"

"Never mind," said she, "you just make it. I know what I am about."

What was the poor man to do? He set to work and made the ox of straw,
and smeared it all over with tar.

The night passed away, and at early dawn the old woman took her distaff,
and drove the straw ox out into the steppe to graze, and she herself sat
down behind a hillock, and began spinning her flax, and cried: "Graze
away, little ox, while I spin my flax. Graze away, little ox, while I
spin my flax!"

And while she spun, her head drooped down and she began to doze, and
while she was dozing, from behind the dark wood and from the back of the
huge pines a bear came rushing out upon the ox and said: "Who are you?
Speak, and tell me!"

And the ox said: "A three-year-old heifer am I, made of straw and
smeared with tar."

"Oh!" said the bear, "stuffed with straw and trimmed with tar, are you?
Then give me 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 graz