Three's a wolf on the ice! Wolf! Wolf! Help! Help!" The wolf twisted and turned, this way and that, but he could not get his tail out of the ice. The goodwife dropped her buckets and began beating the wolf with the yoke. She beat him and belaboured him, and he pulled and pulled; he pulled so hard that he pulled his tail off and left it in the ice. Then he ran away as fast as his legs would carry him.
"I'll pay you back for that dirty trick, Cousin Fox," he thought.
While the goodwife was fetching water, the fox crept into her cottage and began eating dough out of the trough. The fox was so greedy and so afraid of being caught that she plastered dough all over her head. Then she ran away from the cottage and lay down in the road to wait for Cousin Wolf. When she heard him coming she groaned and groaned as if she were dying. The wolf heard her groaning and ran up to her.
"That's how you teach me to catch fish, is it? Look how I've been beaten, I'm all black and blue."
"Oh, Cousin Wolf," groaned the fox, "you've been beaten and you've lost your tail, but your head's all in one piece. Look how I've been beaten, my brains are oozing out of my head. I feel so bad, I can't walk."
"You do look bad, it's true," said Cousin Wolf, "and of course you can't walk. Jump on my back and I'll carry you wherever you want to go."
The fox climbed on to the wolf's back and he carried her. As she rode along on Cousin Wolf's back she sang softly to herself:
"You've been beaten, but not me,
You've been beaten and you carry me!"
"What are you muttering about up there, Cousin Fox?" asked Cousin Wolf.
"I'm singing to get rid of the pain in your tail, Cousin Wolf."
And again she sang as she rode along:
"You've been beaten, but not me,
You've been beaten, and you carry me!"
