The Fox and His Bagful of Wits and the One-Witted Hedgehog
A bed-time story for my friends, from Romania:
"I do not know how he managed it, but a fox one day got into a poultry yard, and there he ate his fill. Some time afterwards, going along to the poultry yard, the hedgehog met him.
"Where are you going, brother?"
"I am going to eat my fill."
"Surely you cannot get it just as you like."
"Oh," he said, "you just come with me, and I will show you. I know my way, and there is plenty for me and for you, and some to leave behind for another time."
The hedgehog, who was a wise old fellow, said to the fox, "Now, be careful. Are you sure that the owners of the poultry yard will let you in again so easily?"
"Don't you trouble," said the fox. "I know my business. You just come with me."
And the hedgehog went with him. But the people of the poultry yard were not such fools as the fox had taken them for, and just where the fox had got in last time they had dug a deep pit, and into that the fox and the hedgehog tumbled.
When they found themselves at the bottom of the pit, the hedgehog turned to the fox and said, "Well, you clever fellow, is that the proper way to get into the poultry yard? Did I not warn you?"
"What is the good of talking?" replied the fox. "We are here now, and we must see how to get out of it."
"But you are so clever, and I am only a poor old fool."
"Never mind. You were always a wise one. Can you help me?"
"No," he said. "I cannot help you. This sudden fall has upset me, and I feel queer and sick."
"What," cried the fox. "You are not going to be sick here. That is more than I can stand. Out you go!"
So he got hold of the hedgehog by the snout, and the hedgehog coiled himself up with his little paws into a little ball round the fox's mouth. The fox lifted up his head with a jerk and threw the little fellow out of the pit.
As soon as he saw himself safely out of the pit, the little hedgehog, bending over the mouth of the pit, said, chuckling to the fox, "Where is your wisdom, you fool? You boast that you have a bagful of wits, whilst it is I who get myself out of the pit, though I have only a little wit."
"Oh," said the fox, whining, "do have pity on me! You are such a clever old fellow. Help me out of it too."
"Well, said the hedgehog, "I will help you. Now, you pretend to be dead, and when the people come and find you stiff and stark, and a nasty smell about you, they will say, 'The fox has died, and his carcass is rotting. It is going to make all the poultry yard offensive.' They will take you and throw you out. And then see whither your way lies."
The fox did as the hedgehog had advised him, and when the people came and found him in that state, they hauled him out and threw him out of the yard onto the road. Quicker than you could clap your hands, the fox was on his legs, and he ran as if the ground was burning under him.
Since then the fox and the hedgehog are good friends." [via The Fox and the Cat tales about being too clever, which cites M. Gaster, Rumanian Bird and Beast Stories (London: Folk-Lore Society, 1915), no. 111, pp. 322-323.]
Æsop tells a different story about fox and hedgehog:
"A Fox, swimming across a river, was barely able to reach the bank, where he lay bruised and exhausted from his struggle with the swift current. Soon a swarm of blood-sucking flies settled on him; but he lay quietly, still too weak to run away from them.
A Hedgehog happened by. "Let me drive the flies away," he said kindly.
"No, no!" exclaimed the Fox, "do not disturb them! They have taken all they can hold. If you drive them away, another greedy swarm will come and take the little blood I have left."
Better to bear a lesser evil than to risk a greater in removing it."