Contents. Tales.

Fairy tales which was written by Tatyana, when she was 11 year old. These fairy tales were published in the local newspaper in 1992:

A collection Fairy tales from Russia. Vladimir Dahl: The Cat and the Fox.

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They arrived and laid everything out in fear and trembling:
the wolf had brought a quarter of a sheep, the bear had brewed some mead, the polecat had plucked and cleaned a duck, and his wife had brought a couple of eggs-in short, each had brought what he could,-and they stood in a ring, waiting, not daring to approach. The Fox looked out of the hole and greeted them alt in a whisper.
"Our bailiff is still resting," she said, "and I dare not waken him: he would be very angry. Be patient, kind folk, and wait." "Listen, sister..." the bear began.
But the Fox poked her head out again and said:
"No, Bruin the Bear, excuse me: I am not sister now, but the bailiff's wife. Felix the Cat came to us a bachelor, and I, too, you know yourselves, have had to struggle along as a poor widow. Well, today he took pity on me and rewarded my true service;
so now I would ask you to be kind enough to address me as mistress."
The animals exchanged glances, shrugged their shoulders, and said nothing; Bruin hung his head and began waving his paw about, inspecting his claws.
A little later out came Mistress Fox and summoned the elders to come one by one to pay their respects to the bailiff, bow low to him and invite him to partake of food.
All the animals were afraid and would not budge from the spot. They only looked at one another, saying:
"You go first, come on!"
Finally they agreed that the wild boar, the oldest, and the most moss-grown, should go; but as soon as he approached and began grunting, although in the most respectful fashion, the bailiff's wife shouted at him and drove him away, saying that he was lacking in courtesy and good manners.
They called on Bruin to go. Bruin set off, but the moment he saw a pair of fiery eyes in the dark hole, lighting a terrible round face with whiskers, he barely stood his ground, mumbled some-thing, quailed, bowed and moved away.

"Make way," shouted the Fox. "His honour is coming."
All the animals went away and hid, some in trees, some others behind tree stumps and bushes, Felix the Cat walked out sedately and, while Mistress Fox whispered in his ear that he should hold his tail as high as possible, he went up to the table prepared for him and began to eat. Then, through force of habit, he rum-bled:
"More, more, more!"
At the same time he squinted in the direction where Bruin was rustling some leaves and peeping out from a bush at the strange bailiff, thought it was a mouse, and could not resist leaping at it in a single bound. The animals almost died of fright, and none stood their ground, thinking that their last hour had come. They jumped up and fled without a single backward glance out of the forest, where the Fox moved with her bailiff; and where she lived quietly in comfort and hunted as she pleas-ed.
So it was that the cunning fox took in a decrepit, good-for-nothing cat abandoned by its master, and used it to frighten all the animals out of the forest.

Vladimir Dahl.

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