A-Z SHORT STORIES

There was once a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep. To amuse himself he took a deep breath and shouted "Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is chasing the sheep!"

The villagers cam running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. But whe they arrived at the top of the hill they found there wasn't a wolf. The boy laughed at the site of their angry faces.

"Don't cry wolf, shepherd boy," said the villagers, "when there's no wolf!" They went grumbling back down the hill.

Later the boy shouted again "Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is chasing the sheep!" To his naughty delight, he watched the villagers run up the hill to help him drive the wolf away.

When the villagers saw that the was no wolf they sternly said, "Save your frightened cries for when there is really something wrong! Don't cry 'wolf' when there is NO wolf!"

But the boy just grinned and watched them go grumbling down the hill once more.

Later he saw real wolf circling around his flock. Alarmed he leapt to his feet and called out as loudly as he could, "Wolf! Wolf!"

But the villagers thought he was trying to fool them again, and so they didn't come.

At sunset, everyone wondered why the shepherd boy hadn't returned to the village with their sheep. They went up the hill and found the boy weeping.

"There really was a wolf here! The flock has scattered! I cried out 'wolf'! Why didn't you come?

An old man tried to comfort the boy as they walked back to the village. "We'll help you look for the lost sheep in the morning, he said, "Nobody believes a liar . . . even when he is telling the truth!"

"The Boy who cried Wolf" by Aesop is in the public domain