THE FAT ROTUND PEASANT

       Once upon a time an old polecat was sitting on a crooked stump scratching her head with her right paw, passionately explaining hunting tricks, animal behaviour and the ways of the world to a slightly thick cat.        “When you see a rat that has stuck its little snout out of its hole, don’t rush straight…

       Once upon a time there was a very young sewer rat that was suffering from a nasty attack: a tic of the eyes, a lot of coughing and restlessness, fear and open mouth.        He had already had this horrible muddle on him for a year, when they all started calling him Tic Rat.       “It’s stress!”…

       One day a fly decided to imitate the spider and build a cobweb, partly because she was tired of looking for food, and partly because she wanted to be an artist.        She had no thread, but thought that she could use something else instead.        Not having any knowledge of the interweaving of the web, she…

       And one day, it was an afternoon, when Caretaker polecat was sitting outside her den scratching her head, nearly flaying herself, because she had heard that some of the pupils at her school had started keeping bad company.        She had even argued with the teachers, in particular with Cretin Crocodile, the Headmaster. They couldn’t muster…

One day it so happened that a colony of ants, as black as asphalt, had taken refuge in an old iron pipe clotted with rust that lay by the side of the road. A broom bush full of yellow flowers, sticky with mould and old leaves had sprung up next to this pipe.       Who knows…

       An ox was dragging a heavy plough under the burning sun, as its sweat sprinkled the dry clods of earth.        A fox that happened to be passing that way gazed at the ox and said: “What a miserable life yours is: you kill yourself with work, all for a bit of hay and a mean…