to fight with; and every time she limped, they thought she was picking
up a stone to throw at them; so they said they should not like this
way of fighting, and the boar lay down behind a bush, and the wolf
jumped up into a tree. Sultan and the cat soon came up, and looked
about and wondered that no one was there. The boar, however, had not
quite hidden himself, for his ears stuck out of the bush; and when he
shook one of them a little, the cat, seeing something move, and
thinking it was a mouse, sprang upon it, and bit and scratched it, so
that the boar jumped up and grunted, and ran away, roaring out, 'Look
up in the tree, there sits the one who is to blame.' So they looked
up, and espied the wolf sitting amongst the branches; and they called
him a cowardly rascal, and would not suffer him to come down till he
was heartily ashamed of himself, and had promised to be good friends
again with old Sultan.



THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN

In a village dwelt a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish
of beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth,
and that it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of
straw. When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped
without her observing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, and
soon afterwards a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two.
Then the straw began and said: 'Dear friends, from whence do you come
here?' The coal replied: 'I fortunately sprang out of the fire, and if
I had not escaped by sheer force, my death would have been certain,--I
should have been burnt to ashes.' The bean said: 'I too have escaped
with a whole skin, but if the old woman had got me into the pan, I