THE WOLF, THE HORSE AND THE BARLEY

Perry's Index to the Aesopica

Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:

THE WOLF, THE HORSE AND THE BARLEY

As he was crossing through a field, a wolf found some barley. Since wolves don't eat barley, he ignored it and continued on his way. The wolf then ran into a horse. He led the horse into the field and showed him the barley, saying that instead of eating the barley himself, he had saved it for the horse, since he liked to hear the sound of the horse's teeth grinding together. The horse then said to the wolf, 'Look here, if you wolves ate barley, you would never have put the pleasure of your ears before your stomach!'
The fable shows that nobody believes people who are inherently wicked, even if they pretend to be good-natured.

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.

Perry 154: Gibbs (Oxford) 399 [English]
Perry 154: Townsend 228 [English]
Perry 154: Chambry 225 [Greek]

You can find a compilation of Perry's index to the Aesopica in the gigantic appendix to his edition of Babrius and Phaedrus for the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1965). This book is an absolute must for anyone interested in the Aesopic fable tradition. Invaluable.