• But we shall always call the best selection of such tales “Grimm’s Tales”: simply because it is the best collection.

• A hungry Fox saw some fine bunches of Grapes hanging from a vine that was trained along a high trellis, and did his best to reach them by jumping as high as he could into the air. But it was all in vain, for they were just out of reach: so he gave up trying, and walked away with an air of dignity and unconcern, remarking, “I thought those Grapes were ripe, but I see now they are quite sour.”

• Notoriety is often mistaken for fame.

• Look and see which way the wind blows before you commit yourself.

• One swallow does not make summer.

• Honesty is the best policy.

• Necessity is the mother of invention.

• Persuasion is better than force.

• Down went the pail, all the milk was spilled, and all her fine castles in the air vanished in a moment!

• Do not count your chickens before they are hatched.

• Better poverty without a care than wealth with its many obligations.

• We may often be of more consequence in our own eyes than in the eyes of our neighbours.

• Evil tendencies are early shown.

• You may play a good card once too often.

• You cannot believe a liar even when he tells the truth.

• Deeds, not words.

• Example is better than precept.

• A Farmer, being at death’s door, and desiring to impart to his Sons a secret of much moment, called them round him and said, “My sons, I am shortly about to die; I would have you know, therefore, that in my vineyard there lies a hidden treasure. Dig, and you will find it.” As soon as their father was dead, the Sons took spade and fork and turned up the soil of the vineyard over and over again, in their search for the treasure which they supposed to lie buried there. They found none, however: but the vines, after so thorough a digging, produced a crop such as had never before been seen.

• “You a doctor! Why, how can you set up to heal others when you cannot even cure your own lame legs and blotched and wrinkled skin?” Physician, heal thyself.

• Do not attempt too much at once.

• There are two sides to every question.

• A Wild Boar was engaged in whetting his tusks upon the trunk of a tree in the forest when a Fox came by and, seeing what he was at, said to him, “Why are you doing that, pray? The huntsmen are not out to-day, and there are no other dangers at hand that I can see.” “True, my friend,” replied the Boar, “but the instant my life is in danger I shall need to use my tusks. There’ll be no time to sharpen them then.”

• What is worth most is often valued least.

• This is why all Tradesmen lie more or less, but they none of them lie like a horse-dealer.

• Greatness carries its own penalties.

• Might makes right.

• The Satyr got up from the table. “Good-bye,” said he, “I’m going: I can’t be friends with a man who blows hot and cold with the same breath.”

• The want of a good excuse never kept a villain from crime.

• Slow and steady wins the race.

• A Wolf once got a bone stuck in his throat. So he went to a Crane and begged her to put her long bill down his throat and pull it out. “I’ll make it worth your while,” he added. The Crane did as she was asked, and got the bone out quite easily. The Wolf thanked her warmly, and was just turning away, when she cried, “What about that fee of mine?” “Well, what about it?” snapped the Wolf, baring his teeth as he spoke; “you can go about boasting that you once put your head into a Wolf’s mouth and didn’t get it bitten off. What more do you want?”

• “Ah, well,” said the Hound, “don’t forget it’s one thing to be running for your dinner, but quite another to be running for your life.”

• There were two Cocks in the same farmyard, and they fought to decide who should be master. When the fight was over, the beaten one went and hid himself in a dark corner; while the victor flew up on to the roof of the stables and crowed lustily. But an Eagle espied him from high up in the sky, and swooped down and carried him off. Forthwith the other Cock came out of his corner and ruled the roost without a rival. Pride comes before a fall.

• A Farmer was greatly annoyed by a Fox, which came prowling about his yard at night and carried off his fowls. So he set a trap for him and caught him; and in order to be revenged upon him, he tied a bunch of tow to his tail and set fire to it and let him go. As ill-luck would have it, however, the Fox made straight for the fields where the corn was standing ripe and ready for cutting. It quickly caught fire and was all burnt up, and the Farmer lost all his harvest. Revenge is a two-edged sword.

• You may change your habits, but not your nature.

• Misfortune often assails us from an unexpected quarter.

• The Miller replied with asperity, “It’s no use your regretting the past. Fortune has many ups and downs: you must just take them as they come.”

• Kindness is thrown away upon the evil.

• Many a service is met with ingratitude.

• Whereupon the unfortunate Miller, vexed and ashamed, made the best of his way home again, convinced that in trying to please all he had pleased none, and had lost his Ass into the bargain.

• Injuries are never forgotten in the presence of those who caused them.

• A man is known by the company he keeps.

• THE PACK-ASS AND THE WILD ASS A Wild Ass, who was wandering idly about, one day came upon a Pack-Ass lying at full length in a sunny spot and thoroughly enjoying himself. Going up to him, he said, “What a lucky beast you are! Your sleek coat shows how well you live: how I envy you!” Not long after the Wild Ass saw his acquaintance again, but this time he was carrying a heavy load, and his driver was following behind and beating him with a thick stick. “Ah, my friend,” said the Wild Ass, “I don’t envy you any more: for I see you pay dear for your comforts.” Advantages that are dearly bought are doubtful blessings.

• Servants don’t know a good master till they have served a worse.

• It is no use being your own master unless you can stand up for yourself.

• Rude shocks await those who take to themselves the credit that is due to others.

• Once upon a time the Sheep complained to the shepherd about the difference in his treatment of themselves and his Dog. “Your conduct,” said they, “is very strange and, we think, very unfair. We provide you with wool and lambs and milk and you give us nothing but grass, and even that we have to find for ourselves: but you get nothing at all from the Dog, and yet you feed him with tit-bits from your own table.” Their remarks were overheard by the Dog, who spoke up at once and said, “Yes, and quite right, too: where would you be if it wasn’t for me? Thieves would steal you! Wolves would eat you! Indeed, if I didn’t keep constant watch over you, you would be too terrified even to graze!” The Sheep were obliged to acknowledge that he spoke the truth, and never again made a grievance of the regard in which he was held by his master.

• A Shepherd found a Wolf’s Cub straying in the pastures, and took him home and reared him along with his dogs. When the Cub grew to his full size, if ever a wolf stole a sheep from the flock, he used to join the dogs in hunting him down. It sometimes happened that the dogs failed to come up with the thief, and, abandoning the pursuit, returned home. The Wolf would on such occasions continue the chase by himself, and when he overtook the culprit, would stop and share the feast with him, and then return to the Shepherd. But if some time passed without a sheep being carried off by the wolves, he would steal one himself and share his plunder with the dogs. The Shepherd’s suspicions were aroused, and one day he caught him in the act; and, fastening a rope round his neck, hung him on the nearest tree. What’s bred in the bone is sure to come out in the flesh.

• “The shepherd catches us regularly and drags us off just like that, and we don’t make any fuss.” “No, I dare say not,” replied the Pig, “but my case and yours are altogether different: he only wants you for wool, but he wants me for bacon.”

• A Gardner’s Dog fell into a deep well, from which his master used to draw water for the plants in his garden with a rope and a bucket. Failing to get the Dog out by means of these, the Gardener went down into the well himself in order to fetch him up. But the Dog thought he had come to make sure of drowning him; so he bit his master as soon as he came within reach, and hurt him a good deal, with the result that he left the Dog to his fate and climbed out of the well, remarking, “It serves me quite right for trying to save so determined a suicide.”

• When you hit back make sure you have got the right man.

• There is no virtue in giving to others what is useless to oneself.

• All men are more concerned to recover what they lose than to acquire what they lack.

• Demades the orator was once speaking in the Assembly at Athens; but the people were very inattentive to what he was saying, so he stopped and said, “Gentlemen, I should like to tell you one of Aesop’s fables.” This made every one listen intently. Then Demades began: “Demeter, a Swallow, and an Eel were once travelling together, and came to a river without a bridge: the Swallow flew over it, and the Eel swam across”; and then he stopped. “What happened to Demeter?” cried several people in the audience. “Demeter,” he replied, “is very angry with you for listening to fables when you ought to be minding public business.”

• A hungry Crow spied a Snake lying asleep in a sunny spot, and, picking it up in his claws, he was carrying it off to a place where he could make a meal of it without being disturbed, when the Snake reared its head and bit him. It was a poisonous Snake, and the bite was fatal, and the dying Crow said, “What a cruel fate is mine! I thought I had made a lucky find, and it has cost me my life!”

• A Nightingale was sitting on a bough of an oak and singing, as her custom was. A hungry Hawk presently spied her, and darting to the spot seized her in his talons. He was just about to tear her in pieces when she begged him to spare her life: “I’m not big enough,” she pleaded, “to make you a good meal: you ought to seek your prey among the bigger birds.” The Hawk eyed her with some contempt. “You must think me very simple,” said he, “if you suppose I am going to give up a certain prize on the chance of a better of which I see at present no signs.”

• They divided the life of Man among them, and each endowed one part of it with the qualities which were peculiarly his own. The Horse took youth, and hence young men are high-mettled and impatient of restraint; the Ox took middle age, and accordingly men in middle life are steady and hard-working; while the Dog took old age, which is the reason why old men are so often peevish and ill-tempered, and, like dogs, attached chiefly to those who look to their comfort, while they are disposed to snap at those who are unfamiliar or distasteful to them.

• A Snake suffered a good deal from being constantly trodden upon by man and beast, owing partly to the length of his body and partly to his being unable to raise himself above the surface of the ground: so he went and complained to Jupiter about the risks to which he was exposed. But Jupiter had little sympathy for him. “I dare say,” said he, “that if you had bitten the first that trod on you, the others would have taken more trouble to look where they put their feet.”

• A Wolf, who was roaming about on the plain when the sun was getting low in the sky, was much impressed by the size of his shadow, and said to himself, “I had no idea I was so big. Fancy my being afraid of a lion! Why, I, not he, ought to be King of the beasts”; and, heedless of danger, he strutted about as if there could be no doubt at all about it. Just then a lion sprang upon him and began to devour him. “Alas,” he cried, “had I not lost sight of the facts, I shouldn’t have been ruined by my fancies.”

• A Stag was chased by the hounds, and took refuge in a cave, where he hoped to be safe from his pursuers. Unfortunately the cave contained a Lion, to whom he fell an easy prey. “Unhappy that I am,” he cried, “I am saved from the power of the dogs only to fall into the clutches of a Lion.” Out of the frying-pan into the fire.

• A Lion had a Fox to attend on him, and whenever they went hunting the Fox found the prey and the Lion fell upon it and killed it, and then they divided it between them in certain proportions. But the Lion always got a very large share, and the Fox a very small one, which didn’t please the latter at all; so he determined to set up on his own account. He began by trying to steal a lamb from a flock of sheep: but the shepherd saw him and set his dogs on him. The hunter was now the hunted, and was very soon caught and despatched by the dogs. Better servitude with safety than freedom with danger.

• Those who pretend to be something they are not only make themselves ridiculous.

• A Miser sold everything he had, and melted down his hoard of gold into a single lump, which he buried secretly in a field. Every day he went to look at it, and would sometimes spend long hours gloating over his treasure. One of his men noticed his frequent visits to the spot, and one day watched him and discovered his secret. Waiting his opportunity, he went one night and dug up the gold and stole it. Next day the Miser visited the place as usual, and, finding his treasure gone, fell to tearing his hair and groaning over his loss. In this condition he was seen by one of his neighbours, who asked him what his trouble was. The Miser told him of his misfortune; but the other replied, “Don’t take it so much to heart, my friend; put a brick into the hole, and take a look at it every day: you won’t be any worse off than before, for even when you had your gold it was of no earthly use to you.”

• A Hunter went out after game, and succeeded in catching a hare, which he was carrying home with him when he met a man on horseback, who said to him, “You have had some sport I see, sir,” and offered to buy it. The Hunter readily agreed; but the Horseman had no sooner got the hare in his hands than he set spurs to his horse and went off at full gallop. The Hunter ran after him for some little distance; but it soon dawned upon him that he had been tricked, and he gave up trying to overtake the Horseman, and, to save his face, called after him as loud as he could, “All right, sir, all right, take your hare: it was meant all along as a present.”

• “Oh, yes, you treated us all right—too well, in fact; it was just that that put us on our guard. If you treat newcomers like ourselves so much better than your own flock, it’s more than likely that, if another lot of strange goats joined yours, we should then be neglected in favour of the last comers.”