The Flying Dutchman and Other Folktales from the Netherlands

Copyright © 2008 by Theo Meder

The lion, the fox, and the donkey went hunting together. They managed to catch a lot of game.

The lion said to the donkey: "You must divide the catch."

So the donkey divided all the game into three equal parts.

However, the lion is the king of the animals, and what the donkey had done did not please him at all. He got angry, grabbed the donkey, and tore him to pieces.

Then he said to the fox: "Now you divide the catch."

The fox was sly. He threw all the game on one big heap. Then he humbly begged the lion for a small bite.

Hereupon the lion granted him more meat than he was ever able to eat.

This short fable is a version of ATU 51, The Lion's Share. The tale was told on May 19, 1966, to collector A. A. Jaarsma by the Frisian storyteller and mole catcher Anders Bijma, from Boelenslaan. The translation from Frisian is based on T. Meder, De magische vlucht (Amsterdam, 2000), p. 29.