this fix and deliver the Bear into your hands." The
man agreed and he told him what to do and went away into the woods.
Soon after, the Bear and the man heard a noise like "Bow-wow,
Bow-wow"; and the Bear came to the man and said, "What's that?" "Oh,
that must be the lord's hounds out hunting for bears." "Hide me, hide
me," said Bruin, "and I will let you off the oxen." Then Reynard
called out from the wood, "What's that black thing you've got there?"
And the Bear said, "Say it's the stump of a tree." So when the man had
called this out to the Fox, Reynard called out, "Put it in the cart;
fix it with the chain; cut off the boughs, and drive your axe into the
stump." Then the Bear said to the man, "Pretend to do what he bids
you; heave me into the cart; bind me with the chain; pretend to cut
off the boughs, and drive the axe into the stump." So the man lifted
Bruin into the cart, bound him with the chain, then cut off his limbs
and buried the axe in his head.

Then Reynard came forward and asked for his reward, and the man went
back to his house to get the pair of geese that he had promised.

"Wife, wife," he called out, as he neared the house, "get me a pair of
geese, which I have promised the Fox for ridding me of the Bear."

"I can do better than that," said his wife Ann, and brought him out a
bag with two struggling animals in it.

"Give these to Master Reynard," said she; "they will be geese enough
for him." So the man took the bag and went down to the field and gave
the bag to Reynard; but when he opened it out sprang two hounds, and
he had great trouble in running away from them to his den.

When he got to his den the Fox asked each of his limbs, how they had
helped him in his flight. His nose said, "I smelt the hounds"; his
eyes said, "We looked for the shortest way"; his ears said, "We
listened for the breathing of the hounds"; and his legs said, "We ran
away with you." Then he asked his tail what it had done, and it said,
"Why, I got caught in the bushes or made your leg stumble; that is all
I could do." So, as a punishment, the Fox stuck his tail out of his
den, and the hounds saw it and caught hold of it, and dragged the Fox
out of his den by it and ate him all up. So that was the end of Master
Reynard, and well he deserved it. Don't you think so?

[Illustration]

THE DANCING WATER, THE SINGING APPLE, AND THE SPEAKING BIRD

There was once an herb-gatherer who had three daughters who earned
t