COVE

Francis Barlow, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," Aesop’s Fables (ca. 600 BC), 1687 edition, Wikipedia.  Aesop (620-564 BCE) was a Greek storyteller and former slave who is still credited as one of the most legendary fabulists. Out of the 725 fables, Aesop was rumored to have written 400 of them. Aesop’s fables teach moral lessons to children through the personification of animals and insects. The most famous of his fables include “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” “The Tortoise and the Hare,” and “The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs.” Barlow's “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” features a Shepard-boy who is tasked with watching the sheep and making sure that a wolf does not get to them. He deems the work boring, so to entertain himself he calls for help from the villagers by yelling “wolf.” The villagers come running and find him laughing at how they had been deceived. He does this a second time to the same result of the villagers coming running and him laughing at their gullibility. The third time, however, a wolf actually does appear but when he calls for help no one comes as they assume he is playing a prank on them again. The moral of the story is liars will not be believed even when they tell the truth. The boy lied too many times and so he faced the consequence when he eventually told the truth. “The Tortoise and the Hare,” features the moral of slow and steady wins the race. This story features a Tortoise and Hare racing against each other. The Hare is cocky and overconfident in his ability to win, so he decides to take a nap believing that even with his nap he will win with time to spare. However, while he sleeps the Tortoise, who never stops, is able to pass and beat him! Another famous fable of his is “The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs.” This story is a morbid cautionary tale about greed. A man and his wife own a magical Goose who laid a gold egg every day! The couple, however, begins to grow greedy and not content with the good fortune they are already being awarded and decide to cut open the Goose to see how much gold is inside the bird. Once they cut open and kill the bird, they discover the bird’s insides are like that of any other and now that the bird is dead the couple will not have any gold anymore. The couple was too greedy and because of it they faced the consequences. These are only a few of Aesop’s legendary fables but demonstrate how every fable teaches crucial morals and lessons to the children who read them.  The book was published originally by William Caxton, and there have been many different important illustrators such as John Tenniel and Ernest Griset as well as Barlow.