Very short story · A1

The Fox and the Stork

Aesop’s fable·~160 words·~1 min read

A fox plays a trick on a stork, and the stork answers with the same trick.

The fox invited the stork to dinner. He wanted to have some fun with her. He served the soup in a wide, flat dish.

The fox could lick the soup easily. But the stork had a long, thin beak. She could only touch the soup and got nothing to eat. She went home hungry, but she said nothing.

A few days later the stork invited the fox to dinner. She served the food in a tall jar with a long, narrow neck.

The stork put her long beak inside and ate well. But the fox could not reach the food at all. "Do not be angry," said the stork. "You made me a dinner I could not eat, so now I have done the same to you."

Moral: Treat others the way you want to be treated.

Tap any word in the story to see its meaning and add it to your vocabulary list.

Check what you remember

3 quick questions about the story. Scroll up to re-read any time.

Question 1
How did the fox serve the soup?
Question 2
Why could the stork not eat at the fox's house?
Question 3
What did the stork do in return?
0 of 3 answered

You finished another classic!

Thank you for reading with ReadClassicly.

We’re building a free library of public-domain books for English learners around the world. If you’d like to help us grow, you can support the project.

Support ReadClassicly
Classicly is free and ad-free, made by one person. Support it on Ko-fi