The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Told by AesopAncient GreeceTale type Perry 210
- Age
- 4 to 9
- Reading time
- 4 minutes
- Scariness
- 2 of 5A villain, never frightening on the page
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The story
There was a boy whose job was to sit on a hill all day and watch some sheep.
The sheep did not do anything. That was rather the point of sheep. They ate grass, and moved a little way, and ate more grass, and the boy sat on a rock and watched them do it, from breakfast until dark, every day.
One afternoon, out of pure boredom, he stood up and shouted as loudly as he could.
"WOLF! There's a wolf! Help!"
And the village came. All of it. The baker came with a rolling pin and the blacksmith came with a hammer and an old woman came with a broom held like a spear, and they ran all the way up the hill with their hearts going, ready to fight a wolf for a boy they barely knew.
There was no wolf. There were sheep, eating grass.
The boy laughed until he cried. He said he was sorry. The villagers went back down the hill, and some of them laughed a bit too, because he was young and it had been a long dull week.
Three days later he did it again.
The village came again, slower this time, and nobody laughed at all. The blacksmith looked at him for a while without saying anything, which was worse than being shouted at, and then they all walked back down.
And then, about a week after that, the boy looked up from his rock and there was a wolf.
It was standing at the top of the field. It was much bigger than he had imagined a wolf would be, and much quieter, and it was not looking at him at all. It was looking at the sheep.
The boy stood up and shouted.
"WOLF! Please! There's a wolf, there's really a wolf, please come!"
Down in the village, the baker heard him and kept kneading. The blacksmith heard him and did not look up. The old woman heard him and shook her head and said, that boy.
Nobody came.
The boy shouted until his voice gave out, and the wolf took what it wanted, and afterwards he sat on the rock in the dark with the sheep scattered across the hill and understood exactly what he had spent.
In the morning he walked down to the village and told them the truth, all of it, and it took a very long time before anyone believed a word he said again.
But he kept telling it. And eventually they did.
What is the moral of The Boy Who Cried Wolf?
If you keep saying things that are not true, people stop believing you, even when it matters.
This is usually taught as a story about lying, but the boy is not really lying to get anything. He is bored, and he has discovered that he can make a whole village move by opening his mouth. What he loses is not his reputation exactly, it is something more specific: the ability to be believed in an emergency. Trust is not a feeling people have about you, it is a thing you spend.
Talk about it
- Why do you think the boy shouted the first time?
- The villagers were angry the second time. Were they right to be?
- What could the boy have done instead when he got bored?
- Is there a difference between a joke and a lie?
- How do you think the boy could earn back the villagers' trust?
Who is in the story
The Shepherd Boy
protagonist · human
Given a job that involves sitting still for eleven hours a day, and not remotely equipped for it.
- Kind
- 6 out of 10
- Brave
- 4 out of 10
- Clever
- 5 out of 10
- Honest
- 3 out of 10
- Curious
- 8 out of 10
- Patient
- 1 out of 10
The Wolf
antagonist · wolf
Arrives at last, and is much bigger and much quieter than the boy had imagined.
- Kind
- 3 out of 10
- Brave
- 7 out of 10
- Clever
- 7 out of 10
- Honest
- 10 out of 10
- Curious
- 4 out of 10
- Patient
- 9 out of 10
The Blacksmith
helper · human
First up the hill both times, with a hammer, for a boy she barely knows.
- Kind
- 8 out of 10
- Brave
- 9 out of 10
- Clever
- 7 out of 10
- Honest
- 9 out of 10
- Curious
- 4 out of 10
- Patient
- 6 out of 10
In a nutshell
A bored shepherd boy shouts that a wolf is coming, twice, for the fun of watching the village run up the hill. When a wolf actually comes, he shouts again and nobody moves.
Scene by scene
12 moments from the tale.
- Scene 1The Hillflat with boredom
The point of sheep
The boy sits on a flat rock and watches sheep eat grass. The sheep move a little way and eat more grass. That is the whole job, and it goes on from breakfast until dark.
Breakfast until dark. Every day
- Scene 2The Hillmischievous
The first shout
Out of pure boredom the boy stands on his rock and shouts that there is a wolf.
He just wanted something to happen
- Scene 3The Hillchaotic then flat
The whole village came
The village runs up the hill with rolling pins and hammers, ready to fight a wolf for a boy they barely know. There is no wolf.
The baker brought a rolling pin
- Scene 4The Hillforgiven too easily
A long dull week
The villagers walk back down the hill carrying their rolling pins and hammers. The boy calls an apology after them. Somebody laughs about it halfway down, because he is young and the week has been long.
They forgave him before they reached the bottom
- Scene 5The Hillrestless
Three days later
Three more days of grass and sheep and heat. The boy stands up on the rock, looks down at the terracotta roofs in the valley, and does the one thing he has ever done that produced a result.
Three days is a very long time
- Scene 6The Hillchastened
She did not say anything
The village comes up the hill again, slower, and stops. Nobody laughs. The blacksmith stands in front of the rock with the hammer down at her side and looks at the boy for a long moment, and then walks back down.
Nobody laughed the second time
- Scene 7The Hillcold
There really was a wolf
A wolf is standing at the top of the field. It is bigger and quieter than he imagined, and it is not looking at him at all.
It never once looked at him
- Scene 8The Villagequietly awful
Nobody came
Down in the village, everybody hears him shouting. The baker keeps kneading. The blacksmith does not look up.
They heard him. They kept working
- Scene 9The Hillgrim
Until his voice gave out
The boy stands on the dry stone wall above the valley and shouts down at the village until there is nothing left of his voice. The lane stays empty. Smoke goes up from the forge exactly as it did before.
He shouted at a mile of warm air
- Scene 10The Hillunhurried
She took her time
The wolf comes down the field at a walk. The sheep go one way across the slope and she goes another, over the crest and out of sight. She does not once look at the boy standing small and far off at the bottom of the field.
There was no hurry in any of it
- Scene 11The Hillreckoning
What he had spent
Afterwards he sits on the same rock he has sat on all summer, with the sheep scattered loose across the dark hillside and lamps coming on in the valley, and works out what he spent and what he spent it on.
He worked out exactly what it had cost
- Scene 12The Villageslow repair
He kept telling it
In the morning the boy walks down into the village and stands in the doorway of the forge and tells the whole truth, all of it, including the parts that make him look bad. The blacksmith goes on working while he talks.
It took a very long time
Where it happens
The Hill
hillside
Where the boy sits all day, every day, watching sheep eat grass.
The Village
village
Down in the valley, where everyone hears him shout.
How they are connected
The Shepherd BoyThe Blacksmithneighbour
She came up the hill twice for him. The third time she did not look up.
Things you might not know
The phrase 'to cry wolf' entered English directly from this fable, and is now used for any false alarm, including in medicine and computer security.
In most older versions the wolf eats the sheep and sometimes the boy too. Gentler endings, where he simply loses the flock and has to earn back trust, are a much later change.
It is catalogued as Perry 210. The Perry Index numbers about 600 fables attributed to Aesop.
There is no punishment anywhere in this fable. Nobody scolds him, nobody hits him, nobody sends him away. People simply carry on with their work, and that is the entire consequence.
Aesop's fables were used as diplomacy. Greek writers describe them being told to kings as a way of saying something the speaker could not safely say directly.
The Perry Index catalogues around six hundred fables attributed to Aesop. Some of them appear in Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts written long before he was supposedly born.
The legend of Aesop's death is itself a fable: the people of Delphi took offence at something he said, planted a stolen golden cup in his luggage, and threw him from a cliff.
The wolf in this story never speaks and never looks at the boy. She is the only major character in the collection with no dialogue at all.
What things stand for
- The shout
- Something free the first time and enormously expensive the third. He discovers he can move an entire village by opening his mouth.
- The blacksmith's hammer
- Willingness, measured in distance. It goes from running up a hill, to walking, to never once leaving the anvil.
- The wolf's indifference
- Real danger does not perform. It never looks at the boy once, and that is far worse than being hunted.
- The empty hillside
- What trust looks like once it has been spent. Everything is exactly where it was, and nobody is coming.
- The walk down in the morning
- Repair is slower than damage. He tells the truth for a very long time before it costs anybody anything to believe him.
The same story elsewhere
Folk tales are not owned by whoever wrote them down first.
The Shepherd's Boy and the Wolf
Greece, c. 600 BC
The oldest form, catalogued as Perry 210, in which the wolf destroys the whole flock and there is no second chance and no morning after.
The Boy Who Cried Tiger
India, traditional
A village watchman rather than a shepherd, and the danger is a tiger coming out of the forest at the edge of the fields.
The False Alarm
Central Europe, traditional
A village bell rather than a shout. The boy rings it for the pleasure of watching people run, until the night nobody comes.
The Liar and the Raiders
Central Asia, traditional
A herder raises a false alarm about raiders twice for amusement, and loses the herd on the third night. The community consequence is stressed over the personal one.
Where you might already know it from
Most children meet a screen version first. Here is what those changed.
To cry wolf
other, -
The phrase entered English straight from this fable and is now used in medicine, security and journalism for any false alarm that costs future credibility.
The Aesop for Children
book, Milo Winter, 1919
A large colour-illustrated collection for young readers, in which the shepherd boy is simply bored, talking to his dog and playing his pipe, before he tries the trick.
The cry-wolf effect
other, -
Emergency planners use the fable's name for a real measured problem: repeated false warnings make people slower to act on true ones.
Questions parents ask
- What is the moral of The Boy Who Cried Wolf?
- If you keep saying things that are not true, people stop believing you, even when it matters.
- What is The Boy Who Cried Wolf about?
- A bored shepherd boy shouts that a wolf is coming, twice, for the fun of watching the village run up the hill. When a wolf actually comes, he shouts again and nobody moves.
- What age is The Boy Who Cried Wolf for?
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf suits ages 4-9.
- How long does The Boy Who Cried Wolf take to read?
- About 4 minutes read aloud.
- Where does The Boy Who Cried Wolf come from?
- The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a traditional tale from Ancient Greece.
Sing it
Every story here has its own song. This one is playful turning thoughtful, about 112 beats a minute.
Nobody's Coming
acoustic folk
There is no recording yet. The words are here so you can sing it yourself.
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