One winter day an old man said to his wife :
“ I want to have a snack! Bake Roly-Poly”. The old woman burst into tears saying : “ I’ll bake it in a moment but I haven’t flour!”
“Don’t weep so bitterly, dear – the old man said – pull yourself together and just scrape the bottom of the barrel. I’m too old but nevertheless I wasn’t born yesterday and won’t advise a trifle”.
The old woman scraped together and had got some handfuls of flour. She baked Roly-Poly and put him on the windowsill for getting cold. But Roly-Poly was lying there not long. He jumped on the floor, then – behind the door and was rolling on the path leading to the forest. He was rolling and singing:
I am Russian Roly-Poly,
I’m rolling not so slowly.
I’ve escaped from my grandparents
I didn’t treat the other variants…
Suddenly Roly-Poly had to stop singing because he saw the Wolf which was not to be trifled with.
“I’m glad to see you, Roly-Poly. What are you singing about?” – the Wolf asked. Roly-Poly sang his song adding the following words:
No sooner you gape,
I’ll simply escape!
Then Roly-Poly was rolling away from the Wolf as fast as possible and met the Bear which usually sleeps during the winter, but there he controlled himself and didn’t sleep at all. Roly-Poly sang his song and went on his way. Then he met the Fox. As you know, the Fox likes to confuse the issue and pretends to be an innocent, but still he had been at the cookie jar. The Fox had listened to the song and said:
“I’m a poor thing. I’m deaf as a door-post. Sit down on my tongue and sing your song once more but a bit louder”.
Roly-Poly sat on his tongue but…he hadn’t time to sing because the Fox ate him in the twinkling of an eye. He licked and said:
“Well, not each tale has the happy end”.