The Fables of Æsop (Jacobs)/The Wolf and the Lamb

by Aesop

 

NCE upon a time a Wolf was lapping at a spring on a hillside, when, looking up, what should he see but a Lamb just beginning to drink a little lower down. "There's my supper," thought he, "if only I can find some excuse to seize it." Then he called out to the Lamb, "How dare you muddle the water from which I am drinking."

"Nay, master, nay," said Lambikin; "if the water be muddy up there, I cannot be the cause of it, for it runs down from you to me.

"Well, then," said the Wolf, "why did you call me bad names this time last year?"

"That cannot be," said the Lamb; "I am only six months old."

"I don't care," snarled the Wolf; "if it was not you, it was your father;" and with that he rushed upon the poor little Lamb and—

Warra warra warra warra warra—

ate her all up. But before she died she gasped out—

"Any excuse will serve a tyrant."