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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

109. THE WOLF, THE FOX AND THREE TRUE THINGS
Perry 159 (Babrius 53)

A wretched fox had fallen into the clutches of a wolf. She begged the wolf to spare her life and not to kill her, old as she was. The wolf said, 'By Pan, I will let you live if you tell me three true things.' The fox said, 'First, I wish that we had never met! Second, I wish you had been blind when we did meet! Third, and last of all, I hope that you do not live out this year, so that we will never meet again!'

Note: The wolf swears by Pan, a Greek god of the forests and hills. Other versions of this story (e..g, Chambry 230) are about a wolf and a sheep, not a fox.


Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.