Once upon a time there was a lion, and the lion had gotten quite sick. He lay around his cave for days, blowing his nose and leaving tissues around, hacking up big gobs of phlegm, and lapping out of the same large bowl of water.

Now, many animals from the surrounding area did come to visit the lion in his time of infirmity. They would bring soup, or a movie, or cough drops, but nothing seemed to make the lion happy. He would roar that the other animals didn’t understand his pain, and order them to leave. This was something of a relief for the others, because they certainly didn’t want to catch whatever the lion had got.

But one animal, the wolf, was something of an instigator, and on a particularly boring day, he went to visit the lion. The lion roared, and yelled, but the wolf didn’t move.

“Did you notice that the fox hasn’t come to see you?” the wolf asked, instead. “That is because he is sleeping in his own cave, because he is also sick. Only, he was sick before you were.”

He tossed around a few words about germs and how they spread, and then let the implication settle in. The next day, he brought the fox to visit. Now, the fox was just fine. No runny nose, no coughing. But the wolf had developed something of a sniffle, and couldn’t help snorting up great heaps of phlegm in front of the lion.

So when he suggested to the lion that the only way to get rid of his cold was to kill the other animal who was sick, the lion immediately struck the wolf down.

The fox was rather surprised by this turn of events. “I was just going to tell you to take a bath and get some sleep,” he said.

So, leaving the wolf’s corpse where it lay, the lion followed the fox’s advice. He felt much better the next morning, and to this day, he still doesn’t know which cure helped him, after all.

The End.

Source: The Lion, the Wolf, and the Fox, Aesop.

Once upon a time, there was a horse. Now, many horses, if not most horses, are sweet and hard working. This horse was not. This horse was lazy and bad tempered. More than anything else in the world, he loved food, and he hating cleaning and lifting heavy things.

But, it wasn’t just any food he loved. While other horses settled for hay and lumps of sugar, this horse lived for pigs-in-a-blanket, tiny pizzas, and miniature bacon lettuce and tomato sandwiches. While other horses ate off the grass, this particular horse ate only off metal trays carried by waiters in matching outfits.

However, in the part of the world where he lived, horses were only rarely invited to parties where hors d’ oeuvres were served. Especially lazy, bad tempered horses.

So, the horse had learned to be a bit sneaky as well. He waited by low windows. He barked like a really large dog. He signed his name to guest lists whenever he could, but his signature always came out looking like a big hoof print and no one could read it.

He needed something more definite. He needed a human suit.

After a party one night, the horse snuck around back to the door where the waiters were leaving. Luckily, one of the waiters had abandoned his black and white outfit. With glee, the horse grabbed the jacket and ran home with it.

The very next day, he was early for a party at the same house. He was immediately handed a plate of chicken wings, and they were gone before he reached the floor.

The whole night passed in a similar manner. Miniature hot dogs, pizzas, sandwiches. Pierogies, dumplings, shrimp. The horse was more stuffed than he had ever been.

Towards the end of the night, someone called the horse over. He froze. Had he been caught? The man called again, and the horse did his best to trot over on two legs. Everyone else was leaving for the night.

“You’re the lucky one, tonight,” the man said. “You look big and strong enough to clean and pack up all these tables. Meet me outside when you’re done.”

The horse looked around. There were many, many tables. It was going to take him all night.

The End.

Source: The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, Aesop

Once upon a time, an apple lived at the top of a very tall tree way out in the countryside. He spent his days blowing in the wind, counting the clouds as they passed through the sky, and trying to swing from his branch to the next one up.

One day, word came to him that he had had relatives. Once “relatives” had been explained to him, he learned this much: a cousin, an apple from the city, was coming to visit him in the tree.

His cousin arrived the very next day. He took her on a tour of his branch, pointing out the sky, the higher branches, and the few other apples who rested near him. His cousin apple was very polite, but did not seem impressed. He wondered how much grander life as a city apple might be, and jumped on the offer as soon as his cousin asked if he might like to see the city with her.

They spent the next day carefully climbing down the tree (especially carefully, because he had heard rumors that the apples near the bottom often went missing) and making their way toward the city.

His cousin’s house, it turned out was, way up high as well. After enjoying the songs and dances that seemed to go on in the city (what his cousin called a parade), the cousins climbed up what appeared to be another tree, they nestled on top, with oranges and bananas and pears and berries.

“What is this place?” the banana asked.

“We call it the Hat.”

He spent quite some time talking with the other fruit, and simply enjoying the wonderful city sounds and smells that drifted by him.

But then, something happened.

Something dreadful.

Just as the mango was launching into a story about a play she’d seen, a long-fingered hand reached up and plucked her from the hat. All of the fruit fell silent in horror, listening to a horrible crunch below.

After that, chaos erupted. The apple was hardly able to find his cousin as all the fruit ran around in circles. But find her he did, and he told her that as nice as the city was, he’d prefer to return to his own tall tree, where he was never in any danger of being eaten.

But when he returned home, a funny thing had happened.

The tree was still there, but all the other apples had gone.

Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard a crunch.

The End.

Source: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, Aesop

Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a quiet, hilly village, just the sort of green and sunny place people who want to feel closer to nature find themselves vacationing in. Now, the first thing to know about this boy was that he was bored. He was home for the summer, and he’d read all his books, played all his video games, and watched all the TV he could deal with. He’d taken to wandering around the village, watching the sheep or the shopowners graze or sell their goods.

The first thing to know about the village was that they were all desperately afraid of hippies ever since many years before, when a hippie convention had descended on a area nearby, filling the air with burning incense and the incessant sound of drum circles. So you’ll understand why several of the more prominent townspeople came running when the boy insisted he’d seen a hippie approaching, a drum under his arm and dreadlocks in his hair.

There was, of course, no hippie. The boy had finally found an exercise to keep him occupied. He went home laughing after the townspeople had given up on their search for the rogue hippie.

The next day the very same thing happened, except this time, to keep the townspeople in a state of alarm, the boy claimed he’d seen two hippies, a male and a female, which meant of course, the possibility of something very dangerous: baby hippies. Again, no such hippies were found, and the townspeople went home grumbling about the boy’s lying ways.

By the third day, the boy had grown tired of the game. He decided to instead climb a tree, and found that when he had gotten up in the branches, he couldn’t really jump down. No matter– he didn’t have much else to do anyway.

But then, something happened. In the distance, the boy heard a sound that sent chills through him and the tree alike: drums.

Sure enough, a muu-muu clad, drum playing, dreadlockied hippie settled under the tree and began to beat on his drum without any sense of melody or music. Just an endless, incessant beat. Desperate, the boy called everyone he could think of from the town (on his cell phone. This wasn’t a long time ago, or anything), but no one would help him.

“We don’t believe you!” they all said, and hung up on him. And so, the boy was forced to sit in the tree, listening to the hippie’s song, until early the next morning.

The End.

Source: The Boy and the Wolf, Aesop

Once upon a time, a tortoise and hare prepared to engage in a drag race. They spent months working on their cars, practicing their left turns, and, in the case of the hare, ragging on the tortoise.

“I will crush you on the race course!” He’d declare, following it up with a not so nice dance, and maybe a few insulting remarks about the tortoise’s mother. But the tortoise paid no mind. He just prepared for the race as he had ever done, slowly and steadily.

And yet, when the starting gun went off on the day of the race, the tortoise was going nowhere. The recent adjustments he’d made to his racecar to improve his performance had left his short little legs dangling just inches away from the pedal. Meanwhile, the hare burst off so quickly all the tortoise could see was an explosion of dust and tiny rocks. The badger was right behind him (yeah, there was also a badger racing, and if you think the hare sounds mean, you should have heard the things the badger was saying to hare just minutes before the race!)

So, the tortoise set to work with his blowtorch and hammer, adjusting the seat so he could reach the pedals and be on his way. With the tortoise nowhere in sight, the hare had already forgotten about him, and was concentrating all his energy on the badger, who was, it seemed, gaining on him at every turn. Also, making faces.

In fact, the hare was concentrating so hard on making sure the badger did not surpass him, that he failed to pay attention to the swerving road ahead of him, and he plunged straight into the wall in a fiery explosion.

Now, the badger saw all of this through his rear view mirror as he sailed past the hare, and as he watched the flames englufing the car, he realized that all this time, the hare was, in fact, the love of his life. He couldn’t live without him! He immediately made a u-turn, heading straight for the wreck.

And so, the tortoise won the race, passing the wreck in his newly adjusted car easily. As he accepted his shiny trophy, the badger walked across the finish line, half dragging the mangled and burned body of the hare, who was, miraculously, still alive. After the hare’s recovery, the two were together forever, although they did always have second thoughts about inviting the tortoise to their barbeques and wine tasting parties. He had, after all, driven right by while the hare remained in mortal peril.

The End.

Source: The Tortoise and the Hare, Aesop’s Fables