The Boy Who Cried Wolf

On a green hill above a little village, a shepherd boy sat on a rock and sighed the biggest sigh in the world.

Below him, the sheep were eating grass. Munch, munch, munch. That was all they ever did.

The boy counted them. Then he counted them again. Then he counted the clouds, and the birds, and the buttons on his coat. It was not even lunchtime yet.

"Nothing ever happens up here," he grumbled.

A clever idea

The villagers had given the boy one important job. "Watch the sheep," they had told him, "and if a wolf ever comes, shout as loudly as you can. We'll come running to help."

The boy looked down at the village. He could see the baker kneading bread, the farmer mending a fence, and the old weaver sitting by her door.

A naughty little smile crept across his face.

He stood up on his rock, took a deep breath, and shouted, "WOLF! WOLF! A wolf is chasing the sheep!"

Down in the village, everyone dropped what they were doing. The baker left his bread. The farmer left his fence. Even the old weaver picked up her stick. They all came puffing and panting up the hill, waving spades and brooms and rolling pins.

When they reached the top, red-faced and out of breath, they found the sheep munching quietly, and the boy rolling about on the grass, laughing.

"There's no wolf!" he giggled. "I tricked you! You should have seen yourselves running!"

The villagers did not laugh. They shook their heads, and they walked slowly back down the hill.

The second time

For a few days, the boy behaved himself. But soon he was bored again.

"It was so funny last time," he thought. "Just once more."

So he climbed onto his rock and shouted, even louder than before, "WOLF! WOLF! Help! Help! The wolf is here!"

Again the villagers dropped everything. Again they ran all the way up the steep hill. And again they found the sheep perfectly safe, and the boy laughing until his sides ached.

This time the baker spoke up. He was not shouting. He was only sad.

"Son," he said, "we left our work to help you. We were frightened for you and for the sheep. If you keep telling stories like this, how will we ever know when you are telling the truth?"

The boy shrugged and kept on giggling. But the villagers walked home without a word.

The real wolf

A few evenings later, the sun was going down and the shadows on the hill were growing long.

The boy was gathering the sheep to take them home when he saw something move at the edge of the trees. Something grey. Something with pointed ears and a long, bushy tail.

It was a wolf. A real one.

The sheep saw it too. They began to bleat and bump into each other in fright.

The boy jumped onto his rock. "WOLF!" he shouted with all his might. "WOLF! WOLF! Please, come quickly! There really is a wolf this time!"

Down in the village, the people heard him. The baker looked up from his ovens. The farmer looked up from his field.

"That boy again," said the farmer. "He must think we're very silly."

"We won't be fooled a third time," said the baker.

And nobody came.

The boy shouted until his voice was hoarse. But he was only one small boy, and the wolf was quick and hungry. It dashed in among the flock, and the frightened sheep scattered in every direction, running off into the woods and the far fields and the dark.

The long walk home

When it was all over, the boy stumbled down the hill alone. He was not laughing now. He was crying.

"Why didn't you come?" he sobbed to the villagers. "I called and called! There was a real wolf!"

The old weaver put her arm round him.

"We didn't believe you, child," she said gently. "You told us there was a wolf when there wasn't. So when there was, we thought it was another trick. People can only trust a voice that always tells the truth."

The next morning, the whole village went out to look for the sheep. It took them all day, and some of the flock was never found.

The boy walked beside them, searching every bush and every hollow. He did not complain once.

From that day on, he never told another fib. It took a long, long time. But one day, when he said something, the people of the village believed him again.

About this story

This is one of the best-known fables credited to Aesop, a storyteller of ancient Greece. It has been told for well over two thousand years, and today "crying wolf" is a saying in many languages for raising a false alarm. In older versions the ending is harsher than the one told here. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.