Once upon a time there was a hare who was frisking up and down under the greenwood tree.
"Oh! Hurrah! Hip, hip, hurrah!" he cried, and leapt and sprang, and all at once he threw a somersault and stood on his hind-legs. Just then a fox came slouching by.
"Good day, good day," said the hare; "I'm so merry today, for you must know I was married this morning."
"Lucky fellow you," said the fox.
"Ah, no! Not so lucky after all," said the hare, "for she was very heavy-handed, and it was an old witch I got to wife."
"Then you were an unlucky fellow," said the fox.
"Oh, not so unlucky either," said the hare, "for she was an heiress. She had a cottage of her own."
"Then you were lucky after all," said the fox.
"No, no! Not so lucky either," said the hare, "for the cottage caught fire and was burnt, and all we had with it."
"That I call downright unlucky," said the fox.
"Oh, no; not so very unlucky after all," said the hare, "for my witch of a wife was burnt along with her cottage."
