The Lion and the Mouse

In the heat of the afternoon, when even the birds were too sleepy to sing, a great lion lay asleep in the shade of a rock.

His mane spread out like a golden cloud. His huge paws were folded under his chin. Every time he breathed, the dry grass in front of his nose trembled.

A little brown mouse came hurrying along on her way home. She was in such a rush that she did not look where she was going, and she ran straight up the lion's tail, over his back and across his nose.

The lion woke with a start.

Before the mouse could squeak, one enormous paw came down, and she was trapped.

A very small promise

The lion lifted his paw just a little and looked at the trembling creature underneath.

"Well," he rumbled. "Who dares to use my nose as a road?"

"Please, King of the Beasts," whispered the mouse. "I didn't mean to wake you. Please let me go. If you spare me, I promise that one day I will repay you."

The lion stared at her. Then he began to laugh. He laughed so hard that his whole body shook and the rock behind him seemed to rattle.

"You? Repay me? What could a tiny thing like you ever do for a lion?"

But the mouse had made him laugh, and a lion who is laughing finds it hard to be cruel. He lifted his paw.

"Go on, little one," he said. "Run home."

The mouse ran, and the lion went back to sleep, still chuckling.

The net

Some days later, the lion was walking through the forest when the ground seemed to leap up at him. Hunters had hidden a net of thick ropes under the leaves. In a moment it closed around him.

The lion roared. He twisted and pulled and bit. But the more he struggled, the tighter the ropes held him, until he could hardly move at all.

His roar rolled through the forest, over the hills and down into the long grass.

The little mouse heard it.

She knew that voice. And she did not run away from it. She ran towards it.

She found the lion lying tangled and tired, his great eyes full of fear.

"Lie still," she told him. "Don't struggle."

Then she began to gnaw.

She chewed through one rope, and then another, and then another. Her teeth ached and her jaw grew sore, but she did not stop. Strand by strand, the net grew loose, until at last the lion could shake himself free.

He stood up and looked down at her, and for a long moment he did not say anything at all.

"You laughed at me," said the mouse, a little out of breath. "But you see? Even a mouse can help a lion."

The lion bowed his great head.

"I laughed," he said, "because I thought help only comes from the big and the strong. I was wrong. Thank you, my friend."

From that day on, the lion and the mouse were friends. And whenever the lion met a creature smaller than himself, he remembered not to laugh.

Why this story has lasted

This fable has been told for more than two thousand years and is credited to Aesop, a storyteller of ancient Greece. Very little is known for certain about Aesop himself. Many of the fables gathered under his name were probably told by many different people and collected over centuries. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.