A peasant was driving through the forest one summer day when he saw a wolf attack a sheep. The frightened sheep ran beneath his cart. The wolf took fright and fled.

The peasant put the sheep in his cart and drove on. After only five sazhen, everything went pitch-dark: it was night.

Astonished, he kept driving without knowing where he was. Then he saw a light.

“Cattle drovers, perhaps. I’ll ask them the way.”

He approached a fire. Wolves sat around it with Egory the Brave himself. One wolf sat apart, snapping his teeth.

The peasant explained that he was lost.

“Why did you take the sheep from the wolf?” Egory asked.

“She ran to me. I felt sorry for her.”

“What are the wolves to eat, then? Look: these have eaten their fill, but that one is hungry and snapping his teeth. I feed them. All are satisfied except him. Throw him the sheep, and I’ll show you the way. The sheep was allotted to that wolf. Why did you take her?”

The peasant threw the sheep to the wolves.

Immediately it was bright daylight again, and he found his way home.

D. N. Sadovnikov, Tales and Legends of the Samara Region (1884), no. 94, p. 283; recorded in Simbirsk