The smart rabbit

The smart rabbit (Kalmyk fairytales in English)

A rabbit nibbled grass in the steppe and strayed too far.

The moment the wolf saw him, he rushed to him. The rabbit ran and hid in a hole. The wolf wanted to crawl into the hole but could not. The wolf began to dig. The hole was not deep, so the wolf's forepaws approached the rabbit and almost reached him.

‘What should I do? I need to deceive him’, these thoughts came to the rabbit.

The rabbit lay alone in the hole. Then the rabbit shouted to make the wolf think that a lot of animals were there:

‘Animals, come here, come up to me! The wolf is crawling into our home. We should catch him here!’ he cried as if a lot of animals were in the hole.

The wolf heard the rabbit’s voice; he was frightened and ran away.

‘The wolf is over there! Come here, hurry up!’ the rabbit shouted and put his head out of the hole at that moment.

The wolf ran away without looking back.

Translated from Kalmyk into English by Danara Balayeva-Kokayeva
Перевод с калмыцкого на английский Данары Балаевой-Кокаевой

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