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
dropped down and she dozed. And, lo! from behind the dark wood, from
the back of the huge pines, a grey 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 palings 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.

"I'm a three-year-old heifer, stuffed with straw and daubed with tar."

"Then give me some of your tar to smear my sides with, when those dogs
and sons of dogs tear my hide!"

"Take some," said the ox. Then the fox fastened her teeth in him and
couldn't draw them out again. The old woman told her old man, and he
took and cast the