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Grimms' Fairy Tales
The
Wolf and the Man
Once on a time the fox was talking to the
wolf of the strength of man; how no animal could withstand
him, and how all were obliged to employ cunning in order
to preserve themselves from him. Then the wolf answered,
"If I had but the chance of seeing a man for once,
I would set on him notwithstanding." "I can help
thee to do that," said the fox. "Come to me early
to-morrow morning, and I will show thee one." The wolf
presented himself betimes, and the fox took him out on the
road by which the huntsmen went daily. First came an old
discharged soldier. "Is that a man?" inquired
the wolf. "No," answered the fox, "that was
one." Afterwards came a little boy who was going to
school. "Is that a man?" "No, that is going
to be one." At length came a hunter with his double-barrelled
gun at his back, and hanger by his side. Said the fox to
the wolf, "Look, there comes a man, thou must attack
him, but I will take myself off to my hole." The wolf
then rushed on the man. When the huntsman saw him he said,
"It is a pity that I have not loaded with a bullet,"
aimed, and fired his small shot in his face. The wolf pulled
a very wry face, but did not let himself be frightened,
and attacked him again, on which the huntsman gave him the
second barrel. The wolf swallowed his pain, and rushed on
the huntsman, but he drew out his bright hanger, and gave
him a few cuts with it right and left, so that, bleeding
everywhere, he ran howling back to the fox. "Well,
brother wolf," said the fox, "how hast thou got
on with man?" "Ah!" replied the wolf, "I
never imagined the strength of man to be what it is! First,
he took a stick from his shoulder, and blew into it, and
then something flew into my face which tickled me terribly;
then he breathed once more into the stick, and it flew into
my nose like lightning and hail; when I was quite close,
he drew a white rib out of his side, and he beat me so with
it that I was all but left lying dead." "See what
a braggart thou art!" said the fox. "Thou throwest
thy hatchet so far that thou canst not fetch it back again!"
From Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Household Tales, trans. Margaret
Hunt (London: George Bell, 1884), 1:298-299. |
