The first one that caught my attention was The Astrologer. It was about a man who lived in a time long ago and thought he could predict things in the stars. He spent all of his time gazing at the night sky. He was walking towards the village one day and thought he could see the end of the world in the stars. Right then he fell into a hole that was filled with mud and water up to his ears. The astrologer cried out for help and the villagers came running to his aide. They told him he was too focused on the future that he didn't stop to look at the present around him. The message this story gave was to take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.
The next story I thought was interesting was the Serpent and the Eagle. There once was a snake that had snuck up on an eagle and wrapped himself around the eagle's neck. The eagle flew high into the sky trying to shake it off, but slowly returned back to the ground because of the lack of oxygen. A countryman passing by saw the encounter and rushed to help the eagle and threw the snake off. The snake was angry and went to bite the man but missed. Biting into the drinking horn instead unknown to the man. Later the man was thirsty and wanted to drink from the horn. The eagle came and took the drinking horn away never to be seen again. The lesson of this story is that an act of kindness is well repaid.
The last story is called the Wolves and the Sheep. A pack of wolves always were near a sheep pasture that was guarded by dogs. The wolves came up with a plan to get rid of the dogs using the sheep. They asked the sheep if they could be friends and the reason they were was because of the dogs. So, the foolish sheep sent the dogs away and the wolves had a great feast that night. The message was to not give up friends for foes.
All stories were taken from The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter.
(Caption: Golden drinking horn by Flickr)
Wow! I read the Aesop folk stories last week for by first week of readingreading. I love how each story has a specific lesson. And although, the stories were written a long time ago, the lessons are widely applicable to many modern day scenarios. Also, the lessons can be universally understood from anyone around the world. Specifically, I really loved the lesson of kindness being repaid, similar to the staples of the well-known belief of karma.
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