Myths and Tales form Greece and Romania May 2012 | Page 114

Scolded by his brother upon returning home, Prepeleac persuades him to
lend him a cart for one final time, and uses it to collect firewood. Once in
the forest, he carelessly proceeds to chop off a fully grown tree, which
cracks the vehicle and kills the oxen. While contemplating the thought of
not telling his brother of the loss (and instead deciding to steal his mare
and ride his family out into the open world), the he gets lost in the
woods. He arrives on the shore of a pond, where he attempts to hunt
using his axe, but that too falls to the bottom of the water. He gets home
and tells his brother that the oxen are stuck in thick mud, and that he
needs the mare to get them out. His sibling angrily refuses, telling Dănilă
that he is unfit for "the worldly life" and urging him to become a hermit.
Dănilă instead steals his brother's mare and sets back for the pond,
where he aims to start searching for his axe.