The Boy Who Cried Wolf

A new fable

There once was a shepherd boy whose duty it was to watch over the sheep in his village at night. But the boy found the work dull, so he would shout “Wolf! Wolf!” despite not seeing any such threat. Each time, the villagers rushed out of bed to defend their flocks, only to find no cause for alarm.

The boy delighted in the chaos he caused, and so he cried “Wolf!” again and again. The villagers became increasingly anxious and always on guard. They began to fear wolves so deeply that they saw the monsters everywhere—in the dark corners of the barn, in the shifting shadows of night, even in the shapes of their neighbors.

One night, after the boy’s cry rang out again, a villager trembling with fear saw what he thought was the silhouette of a wolf by the cow pen. He shot an arrow and struck the beast down—but when the villagers came running, they found only a young woman, their neighbor, who had been quietly milking her cow.

Grief turned to rage, and anger to resolve. The villagers went into the woods with raw meat to attract a real wolf then trapped it in a cage. They brought the beast back to the village and fed it, waiting.

The next night, when the mischievous boy cried “Wolf!” in jest, they opened the cage and let the beast loose. The wolf put a swift end to the shepherd boy’s cries, and the villagers returned to bed for the first night of restful sleep in a long time.

From that day on, the wolf remained in a cage within the village square as a warning to any who might think to disturb the peace with false cries.

Eventually the wolf died, as did the villagers who captured it. Generations later, their descendants wondered why there was an empty cage in the middle of the village. One day, a shepherd boy became bored while watching the flock, and so he cried, “Wolf!”