ittle fox, if you wish to
learn something, reach me your left fore foot."

The fox obeyed, and the musician bound the foot to the left hand branch.

"Now, little fox," said he, "reach me the right one;" then he bound it
to the right hand branch. And when he had seen that the knots were fast
enough he let go, and the branches flew back and caught up the fox,
shaking and struggling, in the air.

"Wait there until I come back again," said the musician, and went his
way.

By and by he said to himself: "I shall grow weary in this wood; I will
bring out another companion."

So he took his fiddle, and the sound echoed through the wood. Then a
hare sprang out before him.

"Oh, here comes a hare!" said he, "that's not what I want."

"Ah, my dear musician," said the hare, "how finely you play! I should
like to learn how to play too."

"That is soon done," said the musician, "only you must do whatever I
tell you."

"O musician," answered the hare, "I will obey you, as a scholar his
master."

So they went a part of the way together, until they came to a clear
place in the wood where there stood an aspen tree. The musician tied a
long string round the neck of the hare, and knotted the other end of it
to the tree.

"Now then, courage, little hare! run twenty times round the tree!" cried
the musician, and the hare obeyed: as he ran round the twentieth time
the string had wound twenty times round the tree trunk and the hare was
imprisoned, and pull and tug as he would he only cut his tender neck
with the string. "Wait there until I come back again," said the
musician, and walked on.

The wolf meanwhile had struggled, and pulled, and bitten, at the stone,
and worked away so long, that at last he made his paws free and got
himself out of the cleft. Full of anger and fury he hastened after the
musician to tear him to pieces. When the fox saw him run by he began
groaning, and cried out with all his might,

"Brother wolf, come and help me! the musician has betrayed me." The wolf
then pulled the branches down, bit the knots in two, and set the fox
free, and he went with him to take vengeance on the musician. They found
the imprisoned hare, and set him likewise free, and then they all went
on together to seek their enemy.

The musician had once more played his fiddle, and this time he had been
more fortunate. The sound had reached the ears of a poor woodcutter, who
immediately, and in spite of himself, left his work, and, w