One year, the winter was particularly cruel and, at the start of spring, snow still overlaid the country like a shroud. The hunter’s traps were always empty and he found that he had to venture further and further out into the old forest where the trees tangled overhead and it was always as dark as night beneath them.
The animals in the old forest were wily and cunning and the hunter had to use all his skills to catch them. He set snares made from a single golden hair and waited for many hours in the piercing cold to ambush the shy deer who came to the clearings to search for green shoots beneath the snow.
One day, he found that a beautiful ermine had been caught in one of his snares. The hunter was very happy because the meat of an ermine was good and the fur would bring him a high price. He thought that the ermine was dead, but when he loosened the snare from around its neck, he saw that the clever ermine was only pretending and with that it wriggled free of his grasp and ran away.
The hunter chased the ermine through the forest. He ducked beneath low branches and jumped over twisted roots. He was as quick as the ermine, but the ermine knew the forest well. It ducked beneath the trunk of a fallen tree and disappeared. The hunter jumped over the fallen tree and when he landed he put his foot in an old bear trap that snapped shut on his leg.
The rusty metal teeth of the trap bit deep into his leg and the pain was terrible, but worse than the pain for the hunter was the sure knowledge that he would die out here alone in the icy forest. Without shelter and fire he would soon freeze to death and if he did not freeze, then he would starve. He pulled at the strong metal teeth with his hands, but they didn’t move so much as an inch. He hammered with his fists on the brutal iron, but to no avail.
Night was beginning to fall and the first stars were appearing in the sky when a rabbit came hopping out of the gloom. It stopped a few feet away from the hunter and looked at him. Its nose twitched.
“Come here little rabbit,” said the hunter, thinking that it would make a tasty meal. The rabbit hopped closer. The hunter reached out his hand. “Come on tasty little rabbit.”
“Not a chance,” said the rabbit. The hunter’s mouth dropped open. No animal had ever spoken to him before. As far as he knew, no animal had ever spoken to anyone before. The rabbit twitched its nose again. “That’s a rabbit-skin hat you’re wearing,” it said. There was no denying it, it was a rabbit skin hat.
“Yes it is,” said the hunter, “and if you do not help me, I will kill you and turn you into a pair of gloves to match.” The rabbit looked at him.
“I can’t help you,” it said.
“Why not,” said the hunter, “is it the hat? You can have the hat.”
“Thank you,” said the rabbit, “I have my own.” It flexed its grand furry ears, then said, “Your attitude isn’t great. There you are, stuck in a bear trap and you’ve just threatened to turn your only hope of survival into a pair of gloves.”
“I’m sorry,” said the hunter, “If you help me I promise not to turn you into a pair of gloves.” He thought for a moment, then said, “nor any of your brothers and sisters. Not ever. I have a garden full of tasty carrots and huge cabbages, I will let you eat there whenever you want.”
“I still can’t help you,” said the rabbit.
“Please,” said the hunter, “I will die if you don’t.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to help you,” said the rabbit, “but that’s a big bear trap and I am only a little rabbit.” The hunter looked crestfallen. “I’ll tell you what,” said the rabbit, “I know a squirrel. He’s quite clever. Perhaps he will be able to help you.” And with that, the rabbit hopped off into the gloom.
“Thank you,” said the hunter, although he was no better off than before.
The darkness deepened. The hunter could no longer feel the pain in his leg because the cold had made it numb. He knew that this meant he didn’t have long to live. He started to cry a little bit, but it was so cold that the tears froze on his cheeks.
“Oh good grief,” said the squirrel, “pull yourself together.” It circled the hunter twice quickly.
“Can you please help me,” said the hunter.
The squirrel cocked its head on one side and said, “Is that a squirrel tail you have dangling from the back of your hat?” The hunter felt himself blush. The rush of blood to his cheeks was painful. The tears that had frozen there melted momentarily.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m sorry I will never do it again. I have a hazelnut tree that each year produces more nuts than I could ever eat. It is yours if you help me. Please.” The squirrel circled him twice more, then cautiously approached the hunter to inspect the trap. The squirrel was even smaller than the rabbit, but the rabbit had said that the squirrel was clever and so the hunter felt hope where before there had been none. The squirrel finished his inspection.
“It is my expert opinion,” said the squirrel, “that you are screwed. You‘d need a crowbar to open that trap and we don‘t have one.” The hunter had suspected as much. He’d seen traps like this before. Without a crowbar it would take two strong men to prise the jaws open.
“You could bite your own leg off,” said the rabbit who had come back, “That’s been known to work.”
“Perhaps if you could fetch me a big stick,” said the hunter, “I could use it to open the trap like a crowbar.” The rabbit hopped off into the darkness. When he came back he was dragging a dark tree branch as thin as a pencil. The hunter looked at it.
“Thank you,” he said, “You are very kind, but I will need something bigger than that.” The rabbit looked at the squirrel. The squirrel said, “I’ll get the deer.” and bounced off into the darkness.
By now it was so cold that the hunter couldn’t feel his hands either. They felt like two big lumps of ice at the ends of his arms. He looked at the twig the rabbit had brought him.
“Mr Rabbit,” he said, “could you get me some more sticks like this.” The rabbit hopped off and when he came back he had a stick in his mouth. He dropped it then went hopping off back into the forest. The hunter looked around himself. He scrabbled together all the little twigs and dead grass he could reach into a little pile. Soon the two of them had made a sizeable heap of wood and leaves. The hunter tried to find his tinderbox, but it was very difficult with his cold, unfeeling hands. It took him a long time to set the tinder alight. He fed the small fire with the twigs and branches that the rabbit had collected.
The deer arrived dragging a big strong branch. It dropped it when it saw the hunter.
“I know what you are going to say,” said the hunter. “My water pouch is made of deer skin and I am very sorry, I will never do it again. By my house I have a large field where you can live and where you will always be safe and have plenty to eat.” The deer looked at the squirrel.
“I told you,” said the squirrel. The deer picked up the branch in its mouth and laid it down in front of the hunter.
“Thank you,” said the hunter. His hands felt less clumsy now that he had warmed them a little by the fire. He pushed the branch between the jaws of the trap and rested his weight against it. The rusty metal screamed in protest as the branch levered it open. He could see that the blood had frozen on his leg and on the teeth of the trap. His leg was nearly free, when the branch snapped and the trap slammed shut.
The animals watched him in silence as he howled and raged at the trap.
“I am going to die,” said the hunter, “and my family will never know what happened to me.” The rabbit, the squirrel and the deer put their heads together. The deer nodded its head and ran into the forest. “It’s no use,” said the hunter, “The trap is too rusty to open now, the stick will just break again.”
“She isn’t getting another stick,” said the squirrel, “We’re not stupid.”
"Then where has she gone?” said the hunter.
“To wake the bear,” said the Rabbit, “Do you need more sticks?”
“To wake the bear?” said the hunter in disbelief. Now he knew he would die for sure.
“He’s hibernating,” said the rabbit, “and he has a very bad temper if you wake him early, but he’s your only hope.”
“Yeah,“ the squirrel chipped in, “he‘s your only hope.”
The hunter stared into the fire and wondered if it would be worse to freeze to death, or be eaten by a bear. He put the last few sticks on the fire and the splintered remains of the branch that the deer had found.
He heard the bear’s complaints long before he saw him. The growling voice was so low that it made his insides rumble as though he was very hungry. The hunter squinted out over the fire. The bear was just a hulking black shadow. The only thing he could see were the eyes, which glowed down at him from around the tree tops.
“What have we here?” growled the bear, “Is that a bear trap you are wearing on your leg?” The hunter was too scared to speak.
“Yup,” said the rabbit, “It certainly is.” The bear came closer. In the firelight, the hunter could see its teeth, which were as long as his fingers. He looked down and saw the bear’s long claws, They dug into the ground even though it was frozen solid. The long winter had taken its toll on the bear and the thick fur hung loosely on its body.
“I was caught in a bear trap once,” said the bear. It lifted its leg and the hunter saw the ugly scar where the fur didn’t grow so well. “It was a cold winter, like this one and I woke long before the winter’s end. There was no food anywhere. I dug into snowdrifts and found only dead grass and frozen bulbs, even the leaves on the trees were not good to eat. I wandered for many days without finding food. I wandered so far that I could smell humans and I was scared because I knew that they would kill me if they found me. That was when I stepped in the trap.”
“How did you escape?” said the hunter. The bear did not reply straight away. It gently turned the hunter’s leg so that it could see the trap. The hunter felt the bear’s great strength. He knew that it could kill him in a second if it wanted to. “I can’t promise you anything,” said the hunter, “If I brought a bear back to the village they would kill us both.”
“I know,” said the bear, “You can give me nothing, but if I free you, you will owe me everything.” The bear let go of his leg, “Your leg is not broken and that wound will heal,” it said, “All I ask is that you remember this kindness, when next the winter is long and cruel.”
The hunter nodded.
“I promise,” he said.
The bear reared up onto its hind legs. Standing like that it was nearly twice as tall as the hunter. For a second it didn’t move then its paw came down like a hammer blow upon the trap and the metal shattered into a thousand pieces. The bear turned and vanished into the forest. The deer, the rabbit and the squirrel remained.
“We need more wood,” said the hunter. The four of them gathered together all the wood they could find. Soon the fire was so large that the hunter could feel himself warming up. He limped to where he had left his bags and when he returned to the fire he fell into a deep, but warm sleep.
When the morning came he found that he was alone. The fire had almost burned out. He cut a strong branch from a tree and made himself a crutch because his leg was sore and he had many miles to go before he reached home. He called out to the rabbit and the squirrel and the deer, but there was no answer. He turned to face the rising sun and made his way slowly home.
When he reached his farm the snow had started to melt. Green shoots poked up through the slush searching blindly for the warmth of the sun. His son was cutting wood in the garden and he could see smoke billowing from the chimney up into the clear blue air.
Spring turned into summer and the carrots in his garden became plump and bright. Lush grass grew in the meadow and he tended to the hazel tree with special care. When his wife showed him the teeth marks on the cabbage leaves and said that he would have to lay traps, he told her the whole story. His sons listened in wonder as he told them of the rabbit and the squirrel, the deer and the bear. The deer frolicked in the meadow and in the autumn the squirrels gathered nuts from the tree. From time to time the hunter would talk to them, but they never replied.
And so the years passed. Season followed season. Warm summers, turned to crisp autumns of wood smoke and rich harvests. The winters were cold, but spring came at its allotted time. His sons grew into fine young men and left to make their fortunes.
Then, one year, when his hair was as white as the snow that fell in October he had reason to remember his promise made so long ago. More snow fell and it was so cold that even the great river froze. When the time for spring came, the world was still caught in the iron jaws of winter and seemed that it would never be free. The old man, for that was what the hunter now was, loaded a sledge with food from his stores. He kissed his wife and said to her, “I have had more years of happiness than I ever deserved, but I have a promise to keep now.” She nodded, for she had always remembered the promise too.
She watched him limp out into the pale morning. The runners of the heavy sled bit deep into the snow. As he disappeared beneath the darkness of the trees she thought she saw the white tail of a rabbit bobbing beside him.
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