The other one swore that he had not come near it.
"Thou needst not be swearing that thou didst not come here; I know that thou didst come, and that it was thou that took it out; but I will know it from thee when thou goest home, if it was thou that ate the butter," said the fox.
Off they went, and when they got home he hung the wolf by his hind legs, with his head dangling below him, and he had a dab of the butter and he put it under the wolf's mouth, as if it was out of the wolf's belly that it came.
"Thou red thief!" said he, "I said before that it was thou that ate the butter."
They slept that night, and on the morrow when they rose the fox said:
"Well, then, it is silly for ourselves to be starving to death in this way merely for laziness; we will go to a town-land, and we will take a piece of land in it."
They reached the town-land, and the man to whom it belonged gave them a piece of land the worth of seven Saxon pounds.
It was oats that they set that year, and they reaped it and they began to divide it.
"Well, then," said the fox, "wouldst thou rather have the root or the tip? thou shalt have thy choice."
Then the fox had fine oaten bread all the year, and the other one had fodder.
On the next year they set a crop; and it was potatoes that they set, and they grew well.
"Which wouldst thou like best, the root or the crop this year?" said the fox.
"Indeed, thou shalt not take the twist out of me any more; I will have the top this year," quoth the wolf.
Thus the wolf had the potato tops, and the fox the potatoes. But the wolf used to keep stealing the potatoes from the fox.
"Thou hadst best go yonder, and read the name that I have in the hoofs of the grey mare," quoth the fox.
Away went the wolf, and he begun to read the name; and on a time of these times the white mare drew up her leg, and she broke the wolf's head.
"Oh!" said the fox, "it is long since I heard my name. Better to catch geese than to read books."
He went home, and the wolf was not troubling him any more.
But the Russet Dog found his match at last, as I shall tell you.
One day the fox was once going over a loch, and there met him a little bonnach, and the fox asked him where he was going. The little bonnach told him he was going to such a place.