Foxey walked into the room and gobbled up all his nice soup. When grandfather and grandmother came home they enquired: “Budulinek, who has been here?” Budulinek said: “Foxey has been here, and has gobbled up all my nice soup.” They said: “There, you see; did we not tell you not to open to any one.” The next time they boiled him pap, and exactly the same thing happened.
The third day they cooked him a nice stew of pears and went into the wood. When they were gone, again came Foxey, and cried: “Budulinek! open, I will give thee a ride on my little tail.” Budulinek replied: “Thou wilt never give me a ride, I know.” Foxey promised she would, and he opened to her. Foxey entered and gobbled up the nice stewed pears. Budulinek seated himself on her tail, and Foxey gave him a ride; but after this she ran off with him, and carried him away into her earth.
When grandfather and grandmother came home and did not see Budulinek, they bethought them at once where Budulinek was. They took a hatchet, a pot, and a fiddle, and went to the fox’s hole. When they came in front of the fox’s hole grandfather began to play his nice little fiddle. Grandmother drummed rub-a-dub on the pot, and sang thereby as follows:
Three little foxes now within,Four little foxes live within,
And the fifth is Budulinek;
We’ve a nice new violin
And a really fine bubinek[a small drum or tambourine].
And so the old fox said to to the young she-fox: “Just go and peep out to see what that is.” The young fox ran out. And as she ran out of the hole grandmother chopped off her poor little head and flung it under the pot. After this grandfather went on playing. Grandmother drummed rub-a-dub, and sang:
Three little foxes now within,
And the fourth is Budulinek:
We’ve a nice new violin
And a really fine bubinek.
The third little fox shares the same fate as the previous one, and then the second; for the old fox again said to her: “Those scamps there are dancing; just go and take a peep to see what it’s all about.” She went; and as she crept out of the hole grandmother cut off her poor little head and threw it under the pot. Grandfather again played, grandmother drummed rub-a-dub, and sang. Then the old she-fox said: “I must go out there myself.” But as she came out grandmother cut off her head too, and threw it under the pot. After this, grandfather and grandmother crept into the fox-hole and found Budulinek. He sat there in a corner and cried for his grandfather and grandmother, and for not having obeyed them. They took him and brought him home, and from that time forth Budulinek has been obedient and got on well.
In another rambling Lapp poem called the Song of the Lamenting Kaskias, occurs the following: “. . . He threw me into the river. The pike took me into his custody; he placed me under his
