Fables of Folly
Tales of foolishness from around the world
Compiled & Edited by
Praveen Dabré
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Praveen Dabré on Smashwords
Fables of Folly
Copyright © 2010 by Praveen Dabré
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a compilation of traditional folklore from across the world. By definition these are in the public domain and free of copyright. However, the author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of those tales that are so copyrighted and have inadvertently been included in this collection.
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Other Books in the Series
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Fables of Folly
Tales of foolishness from around the world
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Boots for the Son in America
ONCE A boy wrote home from America to his father that he had bad boots. The father wanted to send him a pair of new ones, but since he’d heard that the telegraph was much faster than the post, he threw the boots up onto the telegraph wires so that they would get to America quickly.
Before long, a tramp came by, and when he noticed the splendid new boots, he pulled them down and threw his old, worn-out ones up there instead. When the old man saw the worn-out boots a little while later, he believed that the son had gotten the new ones and sent the old ones home.
– Sweden
Eat the Bread Too!
SOME PEOPLE were out in the fields bringing in the hay. They’d brought along a little boy and left him by himself at the edge of the field with a jar of milk with some pieces of bread in it.
He sat there eating with a spoon when along came a snake, who poked his snout into the jar and started drinking the milk.
For a while the boy sat watching while the snake drank. But then he hit him on the head with the spoon, saying, “You’ve got to eat the bread too, you pushy piece of string!”
– Sweden
Forging with Sand
ONCE THERE was a blacksmith who was making scythes, but he couldn’t temper them. Finally he had to ask the Devil, but the Devil wouldn’t teach him the trick.
Someone volunteered to help the smith, and made him a scythe out of wood and painted it to look like it had been tempered.
“Hang it up above the door of the smithy,” he said. So the blacksmith nailed it up.
Before long the Devil himself came along, and believing it was a real scythe, he said, “So you’ve used sand!”
And that was the way he was fooled, for now the blacksmith knew how to do it.
– Sweden
Eleven Fools
ELEVEN PEDDLERS, or knallar as they are known in Sweden, were walking through a field of rye. The rye crop was ripe and moving like waves in the wind, which made them think they were in the Red Sea. When they came out on the other side, they wanted to count heads to see if any among them had drowned.
All of them counted, but they forgot to count themselves, so they never got more than ten no matter how they tried.
Then they met a farmer and explained their problem to him. He showed them a soft cowpat, and told them to stick their noses in it; that way they’d be able to see how many they were. After they did this, they saw that they were eleven.
– Sweden
REYNARD, THE fox saw a man driving a cart full of fish, which made his mouth water. So he ran and he ran and he ran till he got far away in front of the cart and lay down in the road as still as if he were dead.
When the man came up to him and saw him lying there dead, as he thought, he said to himself, “Why, that will make a beautiful red fox scarf and muff for my wife Ann.”
And he got down and seized hold of Reynard and threw him into the cart all along with the fish, and then he went driving on as before. Reynard began to throw the fish out till there were none left, and then he jumped out himself without the man noticing it, who drove up to his door and called out, “Ann, Ann, see what I have brought you.”
And when his wife came to the door she looked into the cart and said, “Why there is nothing there.”
– England
Hold the Wolf by the Tail
ONCE TWO peddlers, or knallar as they are known in Sweden, were out walking. They happened to see a hole in the ground, which they realized had to be a lair of some kind.
They were both curious, so one of them crept down the hole while the other stood watch outside. It so happened that just at that moment, the she-wolf came home; for it was a wolf lair they’d come upon.
Naturally, the peddler who was standing outside got worried about his friend, so when the she-wolf tried to crawl inside, he grabbed hold of her tail and held on. Because of the wolf, it grew dark inside the lair, and the peddler who was inside started shouting, “Who’s that blocking the light?”
“If the tail breaks, you’ll find out soon enough,” called the other.
– Sweden
The Daft Husbands