Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/518

436 man." And now comes a man who has a spear in his hand, and a sword in his belt. The old lion says, "Son, here is one of the kind I spoke of to you." He warns his son not to go too near this one, but the young lion springs on him. The man attacks him with the spear, and then draws his sword and cuts him through the back, and he falls on the ground. The old lion comes up, and the young one says to him, "The long tooth with which the man defended himself was of hard steel, and then he drew a rib out of his side, and dealt me this wound." "There are many children like you who will not obey their fathers and have to bear the consequence," replies the father. The story is also known in Transylvania, see Haltrich, No. 30. Franz von Kobel has treated it in Poems in the Upper Bavarian dialect (Munich, 1846, p. 81). But the Negroes also have the story. See The Lion and the Huntsman, Kölle, No. 9. Compare the notes to No. 48.

From Hesse. Another story from Schweig, in the province of Treves, contains nothing but the conclusion of the fox persuading the wolf to creep through a narrow hole to drink his fill of milk, and how, after the meal, the fox only returns, and the wolf, who is swollen with eating, has to stay behind and is killed. A third story from Bavaria, has also only this adventure, but after all the wolf escapes with his life. He is thoroughly beaten, however, and is ridiculed by the fox. A fourth from the neighbourhood of Paderborn has also some special incidents. The fox invites the wolf to go under a pear-tree, and he will climb it, and shake down the fruit to him. When the people hear the pears falling, they run to the spot, and beat the wolf while the fox escapes. The fox also invites the wolf to go fishing; the wolf has to let his tail hang down into the pond, and is frozen fast in it. At last, when in revenge, the wolf is determined to devour him, the fox chatters to him about some delicious pancakes, which any one who will roll down the mountain will alight straight upon. He himself rolls down, and as he knows the situation of everything below, he brings a couple of pancakes back with him. When they have consumed these, he conducts the longing wolf to a particular part of the mountain, and says he must roll down there. The wolf obeys him, but rolls straight into the pond, and is drowned. The story from Transylvania, No. 3, in Haltrich is good. Horace, Ep. 1, alludes to the fable.

From German Bohemia. In Wendish, see Haupt and Schmaler, No. 6. It is related with lively circumstantiality by Haltrich, No. 10,