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| The Wolf and the Lamb by Wenceslaus Hollar |
“Mom, will you tell me a story?” Lucy looked down at her daughter from the doorway.
“Of course, Luna.
What would you like to hear?”
“I dunno! Just a
story!”
“Okay, okay. Calm
down and get into bed.”
Luna ran across the room, almost tripping on the too-long
pant legs of her pajama bottoms, and jumped unto the bed. Her dark hair flew around her face as she
bounced to a stop. Lucy shook her head
and smiled.
“Come on, silly.
Under the cover.”
Luna crawled beneath the blankets and wriggled around until
she was comfortable. Lucy sat on the
edge of the bed and patted Luna’s leg.
“So, a story.
Hmm. How about a fable?”
“What’s a fable?”
“It’s a kind of story with lots of animals in it.”
“Ohhhh. Okay! Tell me a fable!”
“How about the one with the wolf and the lamb?”
“Yeah! Wolf and lamb!”
“Okay, well it goes something like this…
There once was a wolf and a lamb drinking from opposite ends
of a stream. The lamb was more than
happy to share the water with everyone, but the wolf was greedy and mean. The water flowed from the wolf then down to
where the lamb was. When the wolf saw
the lamb there, he grew very angry. He
snuck up on the lamb and yelled, “Why are you drinking from my stream? You’re ruining it!”
The lamb jumped away and answered the wolf, “But the water
reaches you first, then flows to me. Even
if I were ruining it, you would never taste it!”
The wolf ignored the young lamb’s logic. Instead, he blamed the lamb for something its
father had done long ago. The wolf was okay with
using any excuse he could to be mean to the little lamb, even though he was
blameless.
And I believe the fable ends with the lines,
‘To those this fable I address
Who are determined to oppress,
And trump up any false pretence,
But they will injure innocence.’”
Once Lucy was finished with the story, she looked at Luna
snuggled up in her bed. Luna’s eyes
weren’t as wide as they had been before, and Lucy could tell that she was
fighting a yawn.
“What did you think, kiddo?”
“The wolf was bad.”
“That’s right. The
wolf was bad. Do you know what the moral
of the story was?”
“Yeah, Mommy. It’s
bad people are bad.” Lucy smiled a bit and tried not to chuckle at the short and
sweet answer her daughter gave.
“That’s right, Sweetie.
Bad people, or wolves, are bad.”
Finally, Luna yawned. Lucy stood up and pulled to covers up to her daughter's neck and tucked her in.
"Alright, now. Go to bed."
"Can you tell me another fable tomorrow?"
"Sure thing, Sweetie."
"Good, because I like the animals, even if they are bad sometimes." This made Lucy laugh a little.
"Alright, Sweetie. Now, seriously, go to bed. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Mommy,"
Author's Note:
I chose to write this like a bed time story because the fables were so short, that it would work as being a part of the story itself. I felt like a bed time story would be a good way to create a frame for the fable. The fable included in my story is the actual fable from the Untextbook. There were several of the fables that seemed to have a similar moral or theme that this one did, so I went with the story of the Lamb and the Wolf to include in my story.
The Wolf and the Lamb from the UnTextbook
The Comedies of Terence and the Fables of Phaedrus
translated by Henry Thomas Riley,
to which is added
a Metrical Translation of Phaedrus
by Christopher Smart.
1887.
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