The Fox and the Cat: a Ukrainian Folk Tale

This story is called The Fox and the Cat, a traditional Ukrainian folk tale collected by Robert Nisbet Bain and published in Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk-Tales in 1894. This is a LibraryCall adaptation and recording. In a dense forest in Eastern Europe, in a country now known as Ukraine, there once lived a small red fox. Near the fox lived a man with a house cat named Mr. Shaggy Matthew. The cat had once been very good at his job of catching mice in the house and in the garden, but he was now old and partially blind. The man no longer found the cat useful, so one day, he led Mr. Shaggy Matthew out into the forest and left him there to fend for himself. The fox, who had known the cat for many years, was surprised to see her neighbor alone in the forest. “Why, Mr. Shaggy Matthew!” said the fox, “How d’ye do! What brings you here?” “Oy,” said the cat. “My master loved me as long as I could catch mice, but now that I am old, he has left me for dead here in the woods.” “Oh, dear!” exclaimed the fox. “Well, you leave it to me. I’ll help you get your daily bread. We may be small animals, but if we put our heads together, everything will be okay.” “You’re a very good friend, dear sister fox!” said the cat. Together, the fox and cat built a little shed for Mr. Shaggy Matthew to sleep in. They surrounded the shed with a garden that would protect the cat from the fierce creatures of the forest who would eat him for lunch. Now, one day, a rabbit came to steal cabbage from the man’s vegetable garden. “Kreem-kreem-kreem!” he squeaked. The cat, who had continued to watch over his former master’s garden, popped his head out from behind the fence and gave the rabbit a menacing look. Then he raised the hair on his back to appear much bigger than he was, stuck up his tail and said, “Ft-t-t-t-t-Frrrrrrr!” The startled rabbit ran away as fast as he could. Scared for his safety, the rabbit convened a meeting with his friends the bear, the wolf, and the wild boar. “There is a dangerous cat lurking about, and he has a sneaky fox on his side. What shall we do?” “Never mind,” said the bear, “I have an idea. The four of us are stronger than those two. Let’s host a dinner party and invite the fox and the cat. When they arrive, rather than feed them dinner, we shall eat them for dinner! Here’s the plan. I’ll steal the man’s honey. Mr Wolf, you steal his bacon; Mrs. Wildboar, you can root up his fruit-trees; and you, Mr. Rabbit, go and invite the fox and the cat to dinner.” The animals agreed and ran off to follow the bear’s directions. The rabbit approached the cat’s shed and called through the window nervously, “We cordially invite your ladyship Foxey-Woxey and Mr. Shaggy Matthew for dinner.” After a moment, the cat replied, “Yes, we will attend.” “See you at 6:00,” called the rabbit, running away as soon as he received their response. He was still quite afraid of the enormous cat he had seen in the man’s garden. At 6:00, the cat and the fox arrived at the dinner party. When Mr. Shaggy Matthew saw the delicious hunk of bacon that had been procured for the party, he was delighted. He raised his back, stuck out his tail, and cried excitedly, “Mee-oo, mee-oo!” with all his might. But the animals misheard him. They thought the cat had said, “Ma-lo, ma-lo”, which means “little” in Ukrainian. “What!” said the bear, who was hiding behind the beech trees with the other animals. “Here we have been gathering the biggest feast we could, and this monstrous cat calls it too little! Ma-lo! What a gigantic cat he must be to have such an appetite!” Now all four animals were very frightened. The bear ran up a tree, and the others hid where they could. Well, when Mr. Shaggy Matthew saw the wild boar’s bristles sticking out from behind some bushes, he thought it must be a mouse. And as any cat would do at the sight of a mouse, he raised the fur on his back and hissed, “Ft! ft! ft! Frrrrrrr!” Now the animals were more frightened than ever. The wild boar ran into a bush that was farther off, the wolf cowered behind an oak tree, the bear climbed up into a bigger tree, and the rabbit ran away completely. 135 The cat and the fox remained there with all the good food in front of them. So, on their own, the two friends devoured the bacon, gobbled up the honey, and ate and ate till they couldn’t stuff another morsel of food inside of them. Then they both went home licking their paws. “I told you we’d be fine,” said the fox. Mr. Shaggy Matthew smiled. “All it took was two little animals working together.”