These stories are taken from the English translation of a French poetic retelling of the famous Aesop's fables.
The first one is the Tortoise and the Hare, then followed by the Ass and the Lion's Skin. This story is a quick little tale about how it matters what is on the inside, not outside that counts. Although the donkey was able to scare the other creatures, once he was found out, he could do nothing.
The next story is called The Frog in the Bog, and it is about a frog who sees a large ox and becomes jealous of his size. He resolves to puff himself up, breath by breath, until he explodes. Lesson learned: don't try to be something you're not.
The next story (all of these are titled "Foolish Animals") is about a dog with a bone in his mouth who sees in the reflection of the river another dog with a bone. He jumps in and nearly drowns, losing his bone in the process. Lesson learned here: be happy with what you have
Next we have the country mouse and the city mouse, who eat together and are startled by a knocking on the door. It turns out to be a false alarm, but Country Mouse is unsettled enough that he decides to go home to the comfort of his own familiar house.
Next we have the story of two clever animals, a cat and a monkey, who see chestnuts roasting on an open fire (ahem cue the Christmas music). The monkey convinces the cat to snatch them up, which he does but burns his paw and doesn't get any nuts either. Lesson learned here is that you can't trust a liar, especially if you know he is one.
Now we get to a better known story, that of the fox and the grapes. After trying to grab some high-growing grapes from a tree, Fox decides eventually that they were sour and meant only for pigs. The moral of the story here is simple: If we cannot achieve something ourselves, it seems much more likely that we will depreciate it, whether it is good or not.
The next story of the Fox is where he tries to get Stork to embarrass herself by serving her soup on a flat saucer. Of course, the stork cannot reach it, so Fox laughs contentedly to himself. Stork, wanting to get her revenge and teach Fox a lesson, invites him to dinner and serves the soup in a long-necked urn. Unsurprisingly, Fox is unable to eat it and the lesson is learned that we all have different abilities and just because we can do one thing better than someone else, does not make us better overall than that person. I don't know why Fox couldn't have simply poured out the soup into his mouth though. Oh well.
Fox meets his untimely end in the next story. He and the cat are comparing their agility and tricks and Fox becomes convinced that his multitude of tricks makes him better than the cat. He is swiftly proven wrong once a pack of hunting dogs find them and Cat easily escapes into a tree, while Fox is hunted down and brutally murdered. The End.
Story Source: Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks by Jean La Fontaine
Image Source: Wikimedia
The first one is the Tortoise and the Hare, then followed by the Ass and the Lion's Skin. This story is a quick little tale about how it matters what is on the inside, not outside that counts. Although the donkey was able to scare the other creatures, once he was found out, he could do nothing.
The next story is called The Frog in the Bog, and it is about a frog who sees a large ox and becomes jealous of his size. He resolves to puff himself up, breath by breath, until he explodes. Lesson learned: don't try to be something you're not.
The next story (all of these are titled "Foolish Animals") is about a dog with a bone in his mouth who sees in the reflection of the river another dog with a bone. He jumps in and nearly drowns, losing his bone in the process. Lesson learned here: be happy with what you have
Next we have the country mouse and the city mouse, who eat together and are startled by a knocking on the door. It turns out to be a false alarm, but Country Mouse is unsettled enough that he decides to go home to the comfort of his own familiar house.
Next we have the story of two clever animals, a cat and a monkey, who see chestnuts roasting on an open fire (ahem cue the Christmas music). The monkey convinces the cat to snatch them up, which he does but burns his paw and doesn't get any nuts either. Lesson learned here is that you can't trust a liar, especially if you know he is one.Now we get to a better known story, that of the fox and the grapes. After trying to grab some high-growing grapes from a tree, Fox decides eventually that they were sour and meant only for pigs. The moral of the story here is simple: If we cannot achieve something ourselves, it seems much more likely that we will depreciate it, whether it is good or not.
The next story of the Fox is where he tries to get Stork to embarrass herself by serving her soup on a flat saucer. Of course, the stork cannot reach it, so Fox laughs contentedly to himself. Stork, wanting to get her revenge and teach Fox a lesson, invites him to dinner and serves the soup in a long-necked urn. Unsurprisingly, Fox is unable to eat it and the lesson is learned that we all have different abilities and just because we can do one thing better than someone else, does not make us better overall than that person. I don't know why Fox couldn't have simply poured out the soup into his mouth though. Oh well.
Fox meets his untimely end in the next story. He and the cat are comparing their agility and tricks and Fox becomes convinced that his multitude of tricks makes him better than the cat. He is swiftly proven wrong once a pack of hunting dogs find them and Cat easily escapes into a tree, while Fox is hunted down and brutally murdered. The End.
Story Source: Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks by Jean La Fontaine
Image Source: Wikimedia
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