Aesop’s fables: Conceit shadow

Retold by Panchamee Hewavissenti

A wolf was loitering in the jungle in the early hours of the evening. When the sun was setting it could see its lengthened shadow. It was many times bigger than the actual size. On seeing the huge stature of its shadow, it was fascinated and exclaimed boastfully “I’m such a huge creature, bigger than the lion! I couldn’t see my size earlier. How huge am I? Why have I been so scared of the lion all these days. That’s because I couldn’t see the huge stature of my own. Don’t I deserve, having such a huge stature, to be the king of all animals?”

The haughty wolf saw a lion was coming towards it but it made no major notice on that since it was deceptively infatuated by its own shadow. Instead of escaping the danger,the conceit wolf continued to boast about its size till the lion jumped on wolf and tore it into pieces.

Moral of the story

The wolf’s vain and conceit demeanour caused its own destruction. Likewise people too put themselves in trouble merely out of their boastfulness. Those who overestimate their abilities would be fallen into a pitiful plight when they really encounter a situation where the actual talent, not affected boastfulness requires. They will be at their wits end when they have to face a failure when accepted a challenge would only realise that they are not capable, though overestimated.