The Ant and the Grasshopper
An ant and a grasshopper lived next to each other in the forest. It was spring and food was plentiful. The ant gathered food with the other ants, storing it away in their anthill for the hard winter. The grasshopper, meanwhile, sang and played, stopping only to eat and sleep.
When the winter came the grasshopper was starving, while the ants had all the food they needed. One day, the grasshopper came to the anthill and begged for food. The ant replied, “Because you have sung all spring, why not dance for your supper?”
The Ant and the Grasshopper, variation
An ant and a grasshopper lived next to each other in the forest. It was spring and food was plentiful. The ant gathered food with the other ants, storing it away in their anthill for the hard winter. The grasshopper, meanwhile, sang and played, stopping only to eat and sleep.
When the winter came the grasshopper was starving, while the ants had all the food they needed. One day, the grasshopper came to the anthill and begged for food. The ant said “Because you have sung all spring, you now deserve to die.”
The Ant and the Grasshopper, variation
One winter the grasshopper was starving while the ants had all the food they needed. One day the grasshopper came to the anthill and begged for food. The ant answered, “No.” There was no need for a better response.
The Ant and the Grasshopper, variation
One winter the grasshopper came to the anthill and begged for food. The ants refused for personal reasons, and that was their affair. The grasshopper decided to grow weaker and die, alone, in the cold, and that was its affair.
Spring came, and the ants gathered food as before. There was no music to charm them as they worked, and that was no one’s affair.
The Ant and the Grasshopper, variation
The grasshopper was starving while the ants had all the food they needed.
The Ant and the Grasshopper, variation
An ant lived in the forest. The ant gathered food with the other ants, storing it away in their anthill for the hard winter.
When the winter came the ants had all the food they needed.
But the grasshopper was starving.
But the grasshopper was starving.
But the grasshopper was starving.
The Sheep and the Wolf
A wolf came upon a sheep in the woods and said, “Aha! I know you! You are the sheep whose noise led hunters to my brother last year!”
The sheep said, “You must be mistaken. Last year I was too small and weak to even venture out of the pen.”
“Ah, then you are the sheep who brought sickness to us wolves! For that, I will eat you!”
“Oh, no,” said the sheep. “It wasn’t disease that made me weak. It was this injury on my leg. You can see the scar quite plainly.”
“I see,” said the wolf. “You are the sheep who has been fouling the drinking water with your filthy lips. There can be only one punishment!”
“Not so,” said the sheep. “I drink downstream from you. The water I drink has no effect on you.”
“But you’ve made me waste my time with this foolish investigation. Enough!”
With that, the wolf leaped on the sheep and killed it.
The Sheep and the Wolf, variation
A wolf came upon a sheep in the woods and saying nothing, leaped upon it.
The sheep said, “Won’t you accuse me of something first?”
The wolf said, “Wolves leap upon innocent sheep. Haven’t you heard the stories?”
With that, the wolf killed the sheep.
The Sheep and the Wolf, variation
A wolf came upon a sheep in the woods and said, “Aha! I know you! You are the sheep whose noise led hunters to my brother last year.”
“And what if I were?” said the sheep.
With that, the sheep leaped on the wolf and killed it.
The Sheep and the Wolf, variation
The sheep was weak. It stayed in its pen all winter, and always drank downstream of the wolves.
“Don’t worry,” the sheep’s mother said. “Soon you will be well enough to play.”
“But what about the wolves?” The sheep asked. “They frighten me.”
“Wolves only come for bad little sheep who don’t do what they’re told,” the mother answered, and the sheep was too young to know that mothers lied.
The Sheep and the Crow
A crow grabbed onto the back of a sheep and dug its talons in to stay steady, occasionally plucking out bits of wool.
The sheep, aggravated, told the crow, “You wouldn’t treat a wolf this way. If you did, it would grab you between its jaws and tear you apart.”
The crow answered, “You’re right. To know who I can take advantage of and who I must respect is the skill that has given me so long a life.”
The Sheep and the Crow, variation
The crow sat gently, respectfully on the back of the powerful wolf.
“But would you be so kind to me if I were only a sheep?” the wolf asked.
The Sheep and the Crow, variation
A crow grabbed onto the back of a sheep and dug its talons in to stay steady, occasionally plucking out bits of wool.
The sheep, aggravated, told the crow, “I wouldn’t treat you this way. I’m as kind to others as I can be.”
The crow answered, “Then you’ll suffer the consequences of that.” As it spoke, it dug its claws in anew. “The world needs sheep, but it is not kind to them.”
The Sheep and the Crow, variation
A crow grabbed onto the back of a sheep and dug its talons in to stay steady, occasionally plucking out bits of wool.
The sheep, curious, asked the crow, “What is the difference between the wolf and I, that you treat me so cruelly and not the wolf?”
“The difference is mere power,” said the crow.
“Explain mere power to me,” said the sheep. “Tell me a story about it.”
“Mere power is the only thing that can never be told in stories,” the crow answered. “Stories are always justice and injustice. They have no place for power.”
The Sheep and the Crow, variation
A crow grabbed onto the back of a sheep and dug its talons in to stay steady. It dreamed as it did so that it was a mighty wolf, and that the bits of wool it plucked out were the entrails of the sheep it killed by the river.
The Sheep and the Crow, variation
A crow grabbed onto the back of a sheep and dug its talons in to stay steady, occasionally plucking out bits of wool.
The sheep, aggravated, asked the crow, “Why do you tear at me like that?”
The crow answered, “Because you do not have the power to rip me to pieces like the wolf.”
The sheep said to itself, “Then I will become something that rips.”
The Sheep and the Wolf, variation
The sheep walked through the forest alone.
“Pray tell me,” asked a crow, sitting in a tree. “Why did you kill that other animal back there?”
“It was a wolf,” the sheep replied. “It was a dangerous animal, and I served justice.”
With that, it licked the delicious sheep meat from its long and pointed sheep fangs.
The Sheep and the Crow, variation
A crow grabbed onto the back of a sheep and dug its talons in to stay steady, occasionally plucking out bits of wool.
The crow said, “I hurt you because you do not have the power to tear me to pieces.”
The sheep stood the pain and said to itself, “The world needs kindness more than it needs tearing. Even if the world tears at me, I will not tear back at it.”
And it was right, but the ones with claws did not listen and it was never easy.
The Sheep and the Wolf
Another wolf ate another sheep today.
It was not the same wolf that ate the sheep yesterday, and it was certainly not the same sheep.
The crows tries to tell its story. If a crow can learn from it, it will be a story, not simply a happening. The crow prepares to call out the lesson:
The sheep ought to have been a wolf.
Wolves eat sheep.
This wolf ate this sheep.
There is no lesson. There is no story. All of these killings are boring, too boring to tell a story of, and that has always been the secret of mere power.
Another wolf, another sheep.
And the grasshopper is still starving.
The Ant and the Crow
When the winter came the crow was starving while the ants had all the food they needed. One day the crow came to the anthill and asked for food, in the crow way that it knew would please the ant.
The ant fed the crow but the grasshopper did not know the crow’s way of asking, and the grasshopper was still starving.
The Ant and the Grasshopper
When the winter came the grasshopper was starving while the ants had all the food they needed. One day the grasshopper came to the anthill and begged for food. The ant replied, “Because you have sung all summer, now dance for your supper!”
The grasshopper said, “You must be mistaken. I have fought to survive and breed all summer. The singing you heard was my mating cry.”
“But you have wasted my time!” the ant replied, and leaped on the grasshopper.
The Ant and the Wolf
When the winter came the wolf was starving while the ants had all the food they needed. One day the wolf came to the anthill and begged for food because there were no more sheep.
The ant replied, “Because you have killed for your dinner, why don’t you die for your supper?”
The wolf said, “You must be mistaken. The sheep were gone before I was born. I lived on fruits and vegetables.”
“But you have danced all summer.”
“Not so. I’m too hungry and sickly to dance.”
“But you’ve wasted my time. Enough.”
And like that, there were neither wolves nor sheep nor grasshoppers. Only ants and crows who knew how to please ants.
But that was no one’s affair.
The Ant and the Grasshopper and the Sheep and the Crow and the Wolf
The wolf said to the sheep, “I will leap on you and tear you with my claws.”
The sheep answered, “You must be mistaken. You have no claws.”
And it was true. Further, the crow had no wings, the sheep had no wool, and the ant had not labored more than the grasshopper, who had never danced or fiddled. They were all merely human and there was nothing that called any of them to carry on as they had.
And when they not only saw this but made it impossible to deny, there were so many possibilities that a million stories could not lay them all out.