Fable · 声匠改编 · 4:04
The Fox and the Stork
A sly fox serves a stork soup on a flat plate she can't sip from. So she invites him back, and serves dinner in a tall, narrow jar. Aesop's fable, retold.
Narrator
Mr Fox
Madam Stork
Wren, the messengerOther languages · 2 languages
About this story
The Fox and the Stork is one of Aesop's Fables; the Roman poet Phaedrus told it in Latin verse, and Jean de La Fontaine retold it in French in the 17th century. A fox serves soup on a flat plate to a stork who cannot sip it, and the stork pays him back with dinner in a narrow-necked jar. This VoiceSmiths retelling adds a gossipy wren messenger and a make-up dinner at the end, as a full-cast audio story.
What it teaches
Don't play tricks on others unless you are ready to have the same trick played on you. A good host thinks about what each guest needs, and treats others the way they would like to be treated.
Suits
Ages 4–9
Tips for telling it
- Show children a flat plate and a tall, narrow vase, and ask who could eat from each one.
- Make the slurp, slurp and tap, tap sounds together during the two dinners.
- Ask how the fox felt when his own trick came back to him, and what he did to make things right.
Questions people ask
- What is the moral of The Fox and the Stork?
- Those who play tricks should expect to be tricked in return: one bad turn deserves another. The fox serves the stork soup she cannot reach, so she serves him a dinner he cannot reach.
- Who wrote The Fox and the Stork?
- It is one of Aesop's Fables, traditionally credited to Aesop, a storyteller said to have lived in ancient Greece around the sixth century BCE. Phaedrus told it in Latin and La Fontaine in French; this version is a VoiceSmiths retelling.
- Is The Fox and the Stork the same as The Fox and the Crane?
- Yes. Some English translations make the bird a crane instead of a stork, but the story is the same: a flat dish for the long-beaked bird, and a narrow jar for the fox.
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The Fox Who Borrowed the Tiger's Might
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