Twistales

One day a lion entered a farmyard, and the farmer shut the gate, intent on catching him. When the lion discovered that he could not get out, he began at once to attack the sheep and then the oxen. So the farmer, now scared about his own life, opened the gate, and the lion made off as fast as he could. His wife, who had observed the entire scene, watched her husband moaning about the loss of his cattle, and she cried out,

“You deserve what you got! How could you have been crazy enough to try to catch a lion? Under ordinary circumstances, if you saw him at a distance, you’d wish that he were even further away.”

Old Learning: Better scare a thief than snare him.