The Boy Who Cried Wolf

The Boy Who Cried Wolf, illustrated by Milo Winter in a 1919 Aesop anthology

The Boy Who Cried Wolf, also known as The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf, is a fable attributed to Aesop (210 in Perry's numbering system.^[1]) The protagonist of the fable is a bored shepherd boy who entertained himself by calling out "Wolf!" Nearby villagers who came to his rescue found that the alarms were false and that they had wasted their time. When the boy was actually confronted by a wolf, the villagers did not believe his cries for help and the wolf ate the flock (and in some versions the boy). The moral is stated at the end of the fable as:

Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed. The liar will lie once, twice, and then perish when he tells the truth.

Genre: Fable

In reference to this tale, the phrase to "cry wolf" has long been a common idiom in English, described in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,^[2] and modern English dictionaries.^[3][4] The phrase "boy who cried wolf" has also become somewhat of a figure of speech, meaning that one is calling for help when he or she does not really need it. Also in common English there goes the saying: "Never cry wolf" to say that you never should lie, as in the above phrases.

In popular culture

• Sesame Street had a Muppet version of this fable, entitled, The Boy Who Cried Monster, narrated by Sonia Manzano, in which a village, fed up with being terrorized by a thieving monster stealing the villagers' cookies, institutes a new system, whereby anyone who sees the monster in the village will shout "MONSTER" and the rest of the village will come running. A boy toting a bag of cookies, however, abuses the new system twice, shouting "MONSTER" and having fun watching the villagers rush to his rescue...only to find no monster to confront. Then Cookie Monster shows up, and when the boy shouts MONSTER, just like in the actual fable, the villagers think the boy is trying to fool them again and so this time ignore him and stay put, thus putting the boy completely at Cookie Monster's mercy. Cookie Monster promptly eats the cookies and then plants a kiss the boy, who says "Blecch!"the boy survied magical for no reason.

• The Simpsons episode, Marge Gets A Job, uses this fable as a subplot in that Bart gets out of taking a test by "crying wolf" about being sick, until he ends up literally crying wolf when an actual wolf manages to escape and find its way to Springfield Elementary School as he's taking a make-up test. Ms. Krabappel and Grandpa Simpson even mention the fable by name to Bart.

• Kissyfur had an episode patterned after this fable, The Bear Who Cried Wolf, in which Kissyfur pesters all of Paddlecab County with phony cries for help...until he gets caught by the alligators Jolene and Floyd.

• The Skunk Fu episode, The Art of Passing the Buck, seems to be inspired by this fable.

• Toward the end of the Kate and Allie episode, Rear Window, Kate and Allie relate to Allie's son Chip the fable, ominously ending with "and the wolf ATE THE SHEPHERD BOY!!"

• Garak the Cardassian, in Star Trek, insists the true moral of the story is: "Never tell the same lie twice."

• In the Canadian mockumentary television series The Trailer Park Boys, officer George Green uses a variation of this fable when explaining a situation to park supervisor Jim Lahey. However, he refers to it as 'The Boy Who Cried Shitwolf', because Lahey uses 'shit analogies' and therefore he will understand.

See also

• Aesop's Fables
• Cassandra, a seer in Greek mythology who made accurate warnings but was not believed.
• False alarm
• The Girl Who Cried Monster
• King You of Zhou's folly fooled the nobles repeatedly so they would not rescue him in a real danger
• Marge Gets A Job
• Never Cry Wolf (book)
• Peter and the Wolf
• Shouting fire in a crowded theater

References

Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Look up cry wolf in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

External links

• The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf', translated by Laura Gibbs
• Boy Who Cried Wolf , exact fable version