- Genre
- Animal tale
- Source status
- variant tradition
- Motifs
- fox, cat, boasting, practical skill
The tale: an editorial retelling
A cat walking through a pinewood met a fox. Knowing her reputation for cleverness, he greeted her politely and asked how she was getting on.
The fox wondered whether such a mere mouse-catcher deserved an answer. At last she began belittling him. “What do you understand about anything?” The cat replied calmly, “I know one thing. When dogs chase me, I climb a tree and escape.”
“Only that?” said the fox. “I know a hundred things and have a whole bag of tricks besides. Come with me and I shall teach you how to save yourself.”
Just then a hunter appeared with four dogs. The cat sprang into a tree, climbed high and hid among the branches. “Open your bag of tricks!” he called down to the fox.
But the dogs had already caught her. “You knew so much, yet it did not help,” said the cat from the tree. “If you had known how to climb, you could have escaped.”
About this version
A. Banzomiraitė recorded this version in Palanga; its archive reference is LTR 2269(25). The anthology’s source note gives no recording year, so none has been supplied here. This is tale 16 in volume III of Lietuvių tautosaka.
The bag belongs to the fox’s boast: the narrator never shows an actual object taken from it. The retelling preserves the contrast between many claimed abilities and a single skill used at the right moment.
Telling and discussing the tale
Pause before the dogs arrive and invite listeners to predict each animal’s response. At the end, distinguish a demonstrated skill from a boast: the cat proves his ability, while the fox’s hundred tricks remain unverified.