Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

The World’s Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906.

Æsop (c. 620–560 B.C.) (attributed)

The Goat and the Fox

A FOX had through inadvertence fallen into a well, and was hemmed in by the sides, which were too high for her. A goat, parched with thirst, came to the same spot, and asked whether the water was good and plenteous. The other, devising a stratagem, replied, “Come down, my friend; such is the goodness of the water that my pleasure in drinking cannot be satisfied.” Longbeard descended, when the fox, by mounting on his high horns, escaped from the well, and left the goat to stick fast below.

As soon as a crafty man has fallen into danger, he seeks to make his escape by the sacrifice of another.