Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/259

Rh said a pious grace, with his eyes shut. But, alack! while he did this, the goose had spread her wings, and was now half-way over the loch: so the fox was left to lick his lips for supper. "I will make a rule of this," he exclaimed, in disgust, "never, in all my life, to say a grace again till after I feel the meat warm in my belly."—(J. Macleod, fisherman on the LaxFord.)

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A fox had noticed for some days a family of wrens, off which he much wished to dine. He might have been satisfied with one, but he determined to have the whole lot—father and eighteen sons; and all so like, he could not tell the one from the other, or the father from his children. "It is of no use to kill one son, because the old cock will take warning and fly away with seventeen: I wish I knew which was the old gentleman." He set his wits to work to find out, and one day, seeing them all threshing in a barn, he sat down to watch them. Still he could not be sure." "Now I have it," he said. "Well done, the old man's stroke, he hits true," he cried. "Ah!" replied the one he often suspected of being the head of the family, "if you had seen my grandfather's strokes you might have said so." The sly fox pounced on the cock, ate him up in a trice, and then soon caught and disposed of the eighteen sons, all flying in terror about the barn.

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Once upon a time a fox-hunter had been very anxious to catch our friend, the fox, and had stopped all the earths in cold weather. One evening he fell asleep in his hut, and saw, when he opened his eyes the fox sitting very demurely at the other side of the fire. It had entered by the hole under the door, provided for the convenience of the dog, the cat, the pig, and the hen. "Oh! ho!" said the fox-hunter, "Now I have you I shall keep you," and he went and sat down at the hole to prevent Reynard's escape. "Oh! ho!" said the fox, "I shall soon make that stupid fellow get up:" so he found the man's shoes, and, putting them into the fire, wondered if that would make the enemy move. "I shan't get up for that, my fine