The Fox and the Horse

A farmer kept a horse that had served him well for years, but age had stolen the animal’s strength. Unwilling to feed a horse he could no longer put to work, the man shoved him from the stable. “Do not come back,” he said, “until you are stronger than a lion.” Then he barred the door.

Melancholy, the horse drifted through the wood, hunting any cover from wind and rain. A fox stopped him and asked why he looked so beaten. The horse answered that justice and greed never share a roof: his master had forgotten years of labour and cast him out with an impossible condition—return only if stronger than a lion.

“Cheer up,” said the fox. “Stretch out stiff and play dead.” The horse obeyed. The fox trotted to a lion’s cave nearby and invited him to a free meal: a dead horse lying not far off. The lion came eagerly. At the body the fox proposed tying the lion to the horse’s tail so the carcass could be dragged home to the den for a quiet feast.

The lion agreed and lay still while the fox “fastened” him—but the knots bound his legs so tight he could not break free. The fox slapped the horse’s shoulder and shouted him up. The horse bolted across the fields with the roaring lion in tow; birds scattered from the noise. Straight to the farm he went.

“Here is your lion,” the horse told his master; “I have beaten him.” Softened at the sight of his old servant, the farmer said the horse should stay in the stable and be cared for properly. From then on the horse had food enough, and lived out his days.

Where this story comes from

“The Fox and the Horse” is a short German animal tale from the Brothers Grimm, not an Indian story. In Margaret Hunt’s 1884 translation it is number 132, Der Fuchs und das Pferd; the words followed here are from the Project Gutenberg text based on Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes.

The impossible demand to be stronger than a lion turns care in old age into another test of usefulness. The fox meets the literal condition by trickery, rather than making the horse young again.

The lion is bound tightly and dragged across the fields. The text does not describe an injury, but that does not establish that the experience is harmless.

Read the original: Grimms’ Fairy Tales, tr. Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes (Project Gutenberg #2591, The Fox and the Horse)

Reading guidance: older children, with discussion of an animal being abandoned and another being bound and dragged. The ending restores the horse’s home, but the trick is rough.

An impossible condition exposed

The farmer sets a test designed to keep the horse out. The fox exploits its wording: a bound lion can be dragged even though the horse has not become stronger in a fair contest. The farmer relents, but years of service should already have been a reason for care.

Write two endings beginning at the stable door. In one, the farmer sees the lion; in the other, he listens to the horse’s account of being abandoned. Which ending would show that he understands his responsibility more clearly?

Talk about it

• Why did the farmer send the old horse away?
• How did the fox trick the lion?
• Do you think the farmer was fair to the horse at the start? What should he have done?

Related stories

• Old Sultan — the faithful old Grimm dog whose friend the wolf helps him keep his home
• The Lion and the Mouse — a small animal helps a big one in this famous Aesop fable
• The Dog and the Sparrow — an unlikely Grimm friendship between a hungry dog and a loyal sparrow