Aesop's fables

The wolf and the crane

A wolf had been gorging himself on an animal he had killed, when suddenly a small bone in the meat stuck in his throat and he could not swallow it. He soon felt a terrible pain in his throat and ran up and down groaning and seeking for something to relieve the pain. He tried to induce everyone he met to remove the bone. "I would give anything," said he, "if you would take it out." At last the crane agreed to try and told the wolf to lie on his side and open his jaws as wide as he could. Then the crane put its long neck down the wolf's throat and with its beak loosened the bone, till at last it got it out. "Will you kindly give me the reward you promised?" said the crane. The wolf grinned and showed his teeth and said: "Be content, you have put your head inside a wolf's mouth and taken it out again in safety; that ought to be a reward enough for you."

Moral of the story: Gratitude and greed do not go together.

The wolf and the lamb

Once upon a time a wolf was lapping at a spring on a hillside, when, looking up, what should he see but a lamb just beginning to drink a little lower down. "There's my supper," thought he, "if only I can find some excuse to seize it." Then he called out to the lamb, "How dare you muddy the water from which I am drinking?" "Nay, master, nay," said Lambikin; "if the water be muddy up there, I cannot be the cause of it, for it runs down from you to me." "Well, then," said the wolf, "why did you call me bad names this time last year?" "That cannot be," said the lamb; "I am only six months old." "I don't care," snarled the wolf; "if it was not you, it was your father;" and with that he rushed upon the poor little lamb and .Warra Warra Warra Warra. ate her all up. But before she died she gasped out. "Any excuse will serve a tyrant."

Moral of the story: As far as a tyrant is concerned any excuse is enough.

The cock and the pearl

A cock was once strutting up and down the farmyard among the hens when suddenly he espied something shining amid the straw. "Ho! ho!" quoth he, "that's for me," and soon rooted it out from beneath the straw. What did it turn out to be but a pearl that by some chance had been lost in the yard.

"You may be a treasure," quoth Master Cock, "to men that prize you, but for me I would rather have a single barley-corn than a peck of pearls."

Moral of the story: Precious things are for those that can prize them.

The lion's share

The lion went once a-hunting along with the fox, the jackal, and the wolf. They hunted and they hunted till at last they surprised a stag and soon took its life. Then came the question how the spoils should be divided. "Quarter me this stag," roared the lion; so the other animals skinned it and cut it into four parts. Then the lion took his stand in front of the carcass and pronounced judgment: The first quarter is for me in my capacity as King of the Beasts; the second is mine as arbiter; another share comes to me for my part in the chase; and as for the fourth quarter, well, as for that, I should like to see which of you will dare to lay a paw upon it." "Humph," grumbled the fox as he walked away with his tail between his legs; but he spoke in a low growl .

Moral of the story: You may share the labours of the great, but you will not share the spoils.