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The Boy Who Cried Wolf
By Aesop as told by FabulousFables.com
A young shepherd boy stood on a hill tending his father's flock of sheep. He was bored, so to amuse himself he yelled to the village below: “Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is coming!”
The villagers grabbed their farming implements to use as weapons against the wolf, and they ran up the hill to help the boy.
The boy laughed at the villagers. “Fools,” he said. He thought he was funny.
The people were not amused.
“Don’t every do that again,” scolded the red-faced village elder. The grumbling people returned to their homes.
Once again, the boy was not content to sit and watch the sheep. He was bored and lonely.
“Wolf! Wolf!” he cried. He ran around and flailed his arms to make his yells more believable.
Again, the villagers ran panting up the steep hillside. Again, when they reached him, the boy laughed at them. They were angry and humiliated.
“I warned you not to do that again,” said the village elder, now redder and angrier than before.“Next time you do this, I’ll take a belt to you.”
“I’ll tell my dad,” the smug boy threatened. The unhappy villagers returned home.
After about an hour, he felt the pangs of boredom. ‘There is no way they will fall for the same trick,’ he thought, but lacking the imagination to think of a creative way to relieve his boredom, he thought ‘Why not?’
“Wolf! Wolf!” he screamed as he fell to the ground crying and kicking his feet. The villagers didn't much care for the boy, but they thought surely this time he wasn’t joking, and they ran up the hill again.
“I would have never believed that people could be as dumb as you,” said the laughing boy as the now-tired villagers reached the flock. “Want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn? Ha Ha Ha. You people are just plain stupid.”
This time the village elder didn’t say a thing. He knew he couldn’t spank the boy, and he didn’t know where the boy’s parents were. The thoroughly upset villagers returned home.
On the next day, which was overcast and drizzly, the wolf came up the hill. The beast wasted no time attacking the sheep. He tore into them and scattered wool and blood in every direction. The horrified boy cried out in fear: “Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is here! Help me! The wolf is here! I’m not joking this time.” He ran to and fro flailing his arms. He fell and cried on the ground kicking his feet.
But no one came. The villagers thought it was just another of trick. Meanwhile, the wolf killed most the sheep, and ate as much as he wanted. If he had the room for desert, he would have eaten the boy.
The boy ran to the village elder’s home crying: “Why didn’t you help me? I lost almost all of my family’s sheep. My dad is going to kill me. Waa.”
The old wise man looked at the boy and said: “You’ve learned a lesson today, but you learned it too late, and that is that liars are not believed even when they tell the truth.
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