I recently retold a Native-American folk
tale in which a fox came out badly. I
wanted to write a story which gave the fox a happier ending. So I wrote this story, which is based on an
old Scottish folk tale.
The fox and the tail:
One day the fox and the wolf were out
together at night, and they stole a dish of porridge from a farmer. The wolf was the bigger of the two beasts,
and he had a long tail and sharp teeth.
The fox was afraid of his companion. When the wolf ate almost all the porridge and
left him only a little, he was too afraid to complain. But he vowed to get his revenge.
So, a little while later, the fox began to
sniff the air. “We have had a fine night
together. But I feel tired and I had
better get some sleep,” he said. “I
thank you for sharing the porridge with me.”
“Wait,” growled the wolf suspiciously. “You smell something tasty, I can see. Are you planning to have a midnight snack
before you go off to sleep?”
“Well, if you must know, I had planned on
eating a little cheese before I went to sleep.”
“Come,” growled the wolf. “That’s not very friendly. Aren’t we going to share the cheese just like
we shared the porridge?”
The fox’s ears seemed to droop in
disappointment before he answered. “Of
course, my friend. Thieves like us work
better as a team, especially with farmers around who would love to kill us if
they had the chance. We will go and
fetch and eat this cheese together.”
So the fox sniffed the air again and
trotted off towards a loch. It was
winter, and the surface of the loch had frozen.
“The cheese is there, in the middle of the frozen loch. Do you see it?” asked the fox.
The wolf looked, and saw the full moon
reflected on the surface of the frozen water.
It looked very much like a round of delicious cheese. “I see it!” he said, and prepared to run off
towards it.
“Don’t be too hasty,” warned the fox. “A farmer lives near here with his
family. It must have been him who left
the cheese there. If he sees us making a
midnight snack of it, he will surely come and kill us. So here is my plan. Go and sit by the cheese and hide it under
your tail. Keep your tail as still as
possible so that the cheese is completely hidden. I will go to the farmer’s hut and make sure
that he is asleep. When I see that he is
asleep, I will come back and we can eat the cheese together in safety.”
So the wolf walked onto the loch, and
covered the reflection of the moon with his tail. The fox saw that he kept his tail as still as
possible. The fox trotted off to the
farmer’s hut. He waited quite a long
time, and then started yelping and making a lot of noise.
When the farmer heard the fox, he rushed
out of bed and chased after him with a stick and a gun. The fox ran towards the loch and ran past the
wolf, shouting “Run, wolf! The farmer
has woken up!”
But, as the fox had guessed, the wolf’s
tail had become stuck to the ice. When
he tried to run away, he found that he couldn’t escape because of his
tail. So before the farmer could catch
and kill him, he pulled so hard against the ice that his tail came off as he ran
away.
From that night on, the wolf felt smaller
and less confident when he compared the fox’s bright, bushy tail with his own
stump of a tail. And they shared their
stolen food equally.
Vocabulary:
to come out badly – to lose or be at a
disadvantage after some event
porridge – a dish of oatmeal boiled in
water or milk
to vow – to swear; to strictly promise
to sniff – to breathe in sharply through
one’s nose; to smell
to droop – to fall or hang down
a thief (plural, thieves) – someone who
steals
fetch – bring; go and get
to trot – of a four legged animal, to
slowly run
a loch – a Scottish word for a lake
still - unmoving
to yelp – to make a short, sharp cry
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