A1 Reading Plan · Week 1 · Day 3 of 30

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

From Aesop's Fables·~300 words·~3 min read

A boy lies about a wolf for fun. The villagers stop believing him. Then a real wolf comes.

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A Shepherd's Boy was tending his flock near a village, and thought it would be great fun to hoax the villagers by pretending that a Wolf was attacking the sheep: so he shouted out, "Wolf! wolf!" and when the people came running up he laughed at them for their pains. He did this more than once, and every time the villagers found they had been hoaxed, for there was no Wolf at all. At last a Wolf really did come, and the Boy cried, "Wolf! wolf!" as loud as he could: but the people were so used to hearing him call that they took no notice of his cries for help. And so the Wolf had it all his own way, and killed off sheep after sheep at his leisure.

You cannot believe a liar even when he tells the truth.

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5 questions · pass 4 of 5. Scroll up to re-read the story any time.

Question 1 of 5vocabulary
What does 'tending' mean in the story (he was tending his flock)?
Question 2 of 5vocabulary
What does 'hoax' mean in the story?
Question 3 of 5vocabulary
What is a 'flock' in the story?
Question 4 of 5comprehension
Why did the villagers ignore the boy when the real wolf came?
Question 5 of 5comprehension
What is the moral of the story?
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Source: V. S. Vernon Jones translation, public domain. Provided by Project Gutenberg.