The Fox and the Grapes

It was a warm afternoon at the end of summer, and a fox was trotting along a country lane.

He had been walking all day. He had not found a single thing to eat. His tummy was rumbling so loudly that the birds in the hedge could hear it.

"Grumble, grumble," went his tummy.

"I know, I know," said the fox. "I'm looking."

The vine on the wall

The lane ran past an old stone wall. And growing up the wall, all the way to the top, was a grapevine.

The fox stopped. He sniffed. He looked up.

There, hanging high above his head, was a bunch of grapes. They were round and purple and shining in the sun. They looked so ripe and so juicy that they might burst at any moment.

The fox licked his lips.

"Just what I need," he said. "Sweet, cool grapes on a hot day."

Jump, jump, jump

The fox crouched down low. He wiggled his tail. Then he sprang up into the air as high as he could.

His nose went up, up, up... and he snapped at nothing at all. The grapes were still far above him.

He landed with a thump.

"That was just a practice jump," said the fox.

He walked back a few steps to get a running start. He ran, and he leapt, and he stretched out his neck.

Snap! Nothing again.

He tried jumping off a stone. He tried jumping sideways. He tried standing on his back legs and wobbling, with his front paws waving in the air.

Jump, miss. Jump, miss. Jump, miss.

The grapes swayed gently in the breeze, as if they were laughing at him.

At last the fox sat down in the dust. He was hot. He was tired. His legs ached, and he still had nothing to eat.

What the fox said

The fox looked up at the grapes for a long time.

Then he stood up, brushed the dust off his fur and lifted his nose in the air.

"Hmph," he said loudly, so that anyone listening would hear. "I don't even want those grapes. Anyone can see they're sour. They're probably not even ripe. Who would want to eat sour old grapes like those?"

And off he trotted down the lane, with his nose in the air, pretending he did not care at all.

A little sparrow on the wall watched him go.

"Those grapes aren't sour," she chirped to herself. "They're the sweetest grapes on the whole vine. He just couldn't reach them."

Why it matters

The fox was not really cross with the grapes. He was cross because he had tried and failed, and that felt bad. So he told himself a little story to make the bad feeling go away. The grapes were sour anyway.

We all do this sometimes. If we don't win a race, we might say, "I didn't want to win anyway." If a game is too hard, we might say, "It's a silly game."

But there is another way. The fox could have said, "Those grapes were too high for me today. Maybe I'll find a ladder. Maybe I'll ask a tall friend to help. Or maybe I'll find something else to eat." That is honest, and it keeps the door open to trying again.

About this story

This little fable is credited to Aesop, the famous storyteller of ancient Greece. It is so well known that people still say "sour grapes" when someone pretends not to want something they could not get. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.