How beasts behaved with men is the final tale of the world-famous collection of fairy tales created by Ivan Franko.
The cycle of fairy tales for children, united under the common name "When the beasts still spoke", contains twenty works.
Nineteen of them were first published in 1896-1898 in the children's magazine "Dzvinok".
In 1903, a new edition of the collection was published, in which the last fairy tale of the cycle appeared-the fairy tale "How animals behaved with people".
In the fairy tales of Ivan Yakovych Franko, human flaws and shortcomings are embodied in the images of animals: greed, ingratitude, cruelty and rudeness, tricks and laziness.
In fairy tales, animals with these character traits are always punished.
Instead, the hard-working Donkey, the wise Hedgehog, and the ruthless Hare always defeat the strong and cunning Lion, Wolf, and Bear. The hedgehog-the villain punished the cunning Fox for her treachery, and the kind and intelligent Thrush found a way out of the threatening situation and taught the Fox a lesson.
Fairy tales mock evil, envy, rudeness, ill-manneredness and stupidity. The little birds of the King did not allow the Bear to insult their dignity, to force him to ask for forgiveness, the good-natured Crane taught the cunning godmother Lysychka her method.
In the folk tradition, people who live by tricks, deception, and other people's money are never approved.
