How the Wolf Lost His Tail

Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales, by George Douglas, [1901], at sacred-texts.com

HOW THE WOLF LOST HIS TAIL.

Own day the wolf and the fox were out together, and they stole a dish of crowdie. Now the wolf was

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the biggest beast of the two, and he had a long tail like a greyhound, and great teeth.

The fox was afraid of him, and did not dare to say a word when the wolf ate the most of the crowdie, and left only a little at the bottom of the dish for him, but he determined to punish him for it; so the next night when they were out together the fox said--

"I smell a very nice cheese, and" (pointing to the moonshine on the ice) "there it is too."

"And how will you get it?" said the wolf.

"Well, stop you here till I see if the farmer is asleep, and if you keep your tail on it, nobody will see you or know that it is there. Keep it steady. I may be some time coming back."

So the wolf lay down and laid his tail on the moonshine in the ice, and kept it for an hour till it was fast. Then the fox, who had been watching him, ran in to the farmer and said: "The wolf is there; he will eat up the children,--the wolf! the wolf!"

Then the farmer and his wife came out with sticks to kill the wolf, but the wolf ran off leaving his tail behind him, and that's why the wolf is stumpy-tailed to this day, though the fox has a long brush. ¹

Footnotes

94:1 The story errs in ascribing a stumpy tail to the wolf.