Once on a time it happened that the young hero went out to cut wood in
the forest. He bore a sharp axe on his shoulders, and was besides girded
with a great sword; for as the woods were not only full of wild beasts,
but also haunted by wicked men, the pious hermits took the precaution of
always going armed. While the good youth was forcing his way through the
thickest of the copsewood, and already beheld over it the pointed tops
of the fir-trees (for he was close on the Finland frontier), there
rushed out against him a great white wolf, so that he had only just time
enough to leap to one side, and not being able immediately to draw his
sword, he flung his axe at his assailant. The blow was so well aimed
that it struck one of the wolf's fore-legs, and the animal, being sorely
wounded, limped back, with a yell of anguish, into the wood. The young
hermit warrior, however, thought to himself--

"It is not enough that I am rescued, but I must take such measures that
no one else may in future be injured, or even terrified by this wild
beast."

So he rushed in as fast as possible among the fir-trees, and inflicted
such a vehement blow with his sword on the wolf's head, that the animal,
groaning piteously, fell to the ground. Hereupon there came over the
young man all at once a strange mood of regret and compassion for his
poor victim. Instead of putting it immediately to death, he bound up the
wounds as well as he could with moss and twigs of trees, placed it on a
sort of canvas sling on which he was in the habit of carrying great
fagots, and with much labour brought it home, in hopes that he might be
able at last to cure and tame his fallen adversary. He did not find his
father in the cottage, and it was not without some fear and anxiety that
he laid the wolf on his own bed, which was made of moss and rushes, and
over which he had nailed St. George and the Dragon. He then turned to