The Boy Who Cried Wolf

In a village there lived a little shepherd boy. Every morning he took the sheep up to the hill above the village and waited there until evening. The hill was quiet, the sheep only grazed, and the boy was very bored.

One day a joke came into his head. He shouted toward the village with all his might: "The wolf is coming! The wolf is coming! Help!"

The villagers dropped their work and ran up the hill with sticks and rakes. When they arrived, out of breath, what did they see? No wolf at all, the sheep grazing calmly, and the shepherd rolling on the ground with laughter. The villagers went back down, grumbling.

A few days later the boy was bored again. He shouted again: "Wolf! The wolf is coming!" The villagers ran again, and were fooled again. This time they were very angry. "If you do this once more, nobody will ever believe you!" they said.

Then one evening the bushes at the edge of the forest really did move. A huge grey wolf was creeping silently toward the flock. Shaking with fear, the boy shouted: "The wolf is coming! It's real this time! Please come!"

Everyone in the village heard him. But nobody moved. "He's joking again," they said. "We won't fall for it this time."

The wolf dashed into the flock and the sheep scattered in every direction. The boy, all alone, shouted and shouted, trying to drive the wolf away. In the end, losing one sheep, he just managed to chase it off.

When he returned to the village that evening, the oldest man in the village called him over. He was not angry; he simply said: "Son, the worst thing that happens to a liar is that nobody believes him when he tells the truth."

From that day on the boy never told a lie again. And it took him a long time of hard work to win back the villagers' trust. Because trust takes a minute to lose and years to earn.