【英】《伊索寓言》第2集：The Boy Who Cried Wolf

On a grassy hill overlooking a village, a boy sat on a rock next to his father’s flock of sheep. The boy looked down on the village below. He thought about how much more fun he would have if his chores were in the village instead of all alone in the sheep 
pasture.

“I’m bored,” he complained.

The sheep looked at him a moment. Then they returned to eating grass.

“I’m very bored,” he complained even louder. 

The sheep looked at him and then went back to their eating.

Being looked at by sheep was not that interesting. 

The boy wanted the attention of people, not sheep. That gave him an idea. He knew exactly how to get lots of people to look. He stood up on his rock and shouted, “A wolf! Help! A wolf is after the sheep!”

As he yelled, he saw the people from the village swarm up the hill. They raced up to the boy and said, “Where is the wolf?”

“He must have heard you coming,” the boy said. 

“He left.”

The people looked suspicious, but they patted the boy on the head and went home. The boy waited until they were gone, and he laughed and laughed about his trick.

Then he decided to try it again. He scrambled back up on his rock and yelled, “The wolf is back! Help!”

Again, the people rushed up the hill. And again the boy said the wolf must have rushed off. Now the people shook their heads and frowned at the boy.

“We have no time for games,” the village baker scolded as the villagers walked away.

The boy decided the second time wasn’t quite 

as fun as the first. As the late afternoon sun made shadows around the sheep, he wondered if calling the villagers a third time might be best of all. Then he spotted a real wolf creeping out of the woods toward the sheep.

The boy leaped up on top of the rock and yelled, “A wolf! Help! Help!”

The wolf backed up when the boy yelled, but no one came. So, he raced up and grabbed the biggest, fattest sheep and dragged it toward the woods. The boy tried chasing the wolf with a stick, but he couldn’t save the sheep all by himself.

When the boy finally took the rest of the sheep home, his father scolded him sharply. “When you are known as a liar, no one believes you even when you speak the truth.”