The Boy Who Cried Wolf is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 210 in the Perry Index.[1] From it is derived the English idiom "to cry wolf", defined as "to give a false alarm" in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable[2] and glossed by the Oxford English Dictionary as meaning to make false claims, with the result that subsequent true claims are disbelieved.[3]

Fable
The tale concerns a shepherd boy who repeatedly fools villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his town's flock. When an actual wolf appears and the boy calls for help, the villagers believe that it is another false alarm, and the sheep are eaten by the wolf. In a later English-language poetic version of the fable, the wolf also eats the boy. This happens in Fables for Five Years Old (1830) by John Hookham Frere,[4] in William Ellery Leonard's Aesop & Hyssop (1912),[5] and in Louis Untermeyer's 1965 poem.[6]

The moral stated at the end of the Greek version is, "this shows how liars are rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them". It echoes a statement attributed to Aristotle by Diogenes Laërtius in his The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, in which the sage was asked what those who tell lies gain by it and he answered "that when they speak truth they are not believed".[7] William Caxton similarly closes his version with the remark that "men bileve not lyghtly hym whiche is knowen for a lyer".[8]

History
The story dates from Classical times, but, since it was recorded only in Greek and not translated into Latin until the 15th century, it only began to gain currency after it appeared in Heinrich Steinhöwel's collection of the fables and so spread through the rest of Europe. For this reason, there was no agreed title for the story. Caxton titles it "Of the child whiche kepte the sheep" (1484), Hieronymus Osius "The boy who lied" ("De mendace puero", 1574), Francis Barlow "Of the herd boy and the farmers" ("De pastoris puero et agricolis", 1687), Roger L'Estrange "A boy and false alarms" (1692), and George Fyler Townsend "The shepherd boy and the wolf" (1867). It was under the final title that Edward Hughes set it as the first of ten Songs from Aesop's Fables for children's voices and piano, in a poetic version by Peter Westmore (1965).[9] It also features as the second of "Aesop's Fables for narrator and band" (1999) by Scott Watson (b. 1964)[10]

Teachers have used the fable as a cautionary tale about telling the truth, but an educational experiment in the first decade of the 21st century suggested that reading "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" increased children's likelihood of lying; reading about George Washington and the cherry tree, however, decreased this likelihood dramatically.[11] The suggestibility and favourable outcome of the behaviour described, therefore, seems the key to moral instruction of the young. However, when dealing with the moral behaviour of adults, Samuel Croxall asks, referencing political alarmism, "when we are alarmed with imaginary dangers in respect of the public, till the cry grows quite stale and threadbare, how can it be expected we should know when to guard ourselves against real ones?"[12]

STOP Lying Like The Boy Who Cried Wolf and Learn the Truth @storytimeadventures-Mani

horror stories,humankind stories,short stories,reddit stories,crimes gone viral,viral short,crimes gone viral id full episode,viral gifs,viral magic,maga teen viral video,magpakailanman viral siblings,magpakailanman viral siblings full episode,series,florida,stephanie soo story,123 go! series,stephanie soo storytime,photos with disturbing backstories,story,babies,motivational story,internet mysteries,history
the boy who cried wolf,boy who cried wolf,the boy who cried wolf story,boy who cried wolf story,the boy who cried wolf read aloud,the little boy who cried wolf,the boy who cried wolf in english,a boy who cried wolf,the boy who cried werewolf,the boy that cried wolf,the boy who cried wolf in hindi,little boy who cried wolf,the boy who cried wolf story writing,cried wolf story,the boy who cried wolf story for children,the boy how cried wolf,the boy cried wolf
viral
viral shorts
viral videos
horror stories
humankind stories
short stories
reddit stories
crimes gone viral
viral short
crimes gone viral id full episode
viral gifs
viral magic
maga teen viral video
magpakailanman viral siblings
magpakailanman viral siblings full episode
series
florida
stephanie soo story
123 go! series
stephanie soo storytime
photos with disturbing backstories
babies
motivational story
internet mysteries
history
kids stories
bedtime stories
stories for kids
bedtime stories for kids
stories
english stories
stories in english
moral stories for kids
stories for children
bible stories for kids
bible stories
kids bible stories
short stories for kids
kids hut stories
moral stories
english stories for kids
amazing animals
amazing stories
tia and tofu stories
kids hut family stories
minno bible stories
tia tofu stories
stories for kids in english