# The Bundle of Sticks _Retold by Talerie (talerie.com) from Aesop’s Fables: a new translation_ · 1 min read · ages 4+ A father whose sons are always quarreling asks them to break a tied bundle of sticks, and none can, yet each snaps the loose sticks easily. He tells his boys that together they are more than a match for their enemies, but if they quarrel and part, anyone who attacks them can do as he likes with them. --- Once there was a man who had several sons, and they were always quarreling with one another. Try as he might, he could not get them to live together in peace. Talking had done no good, so he decided to show them how foolish they were. He sent his sons out to fetch a bundle of sticks, and when they brought it back, he asked each of them in turn to break it across his knee. The first son tried, and the bundle held. The next son tried, and it held again. One after another they all pushed and strained, and not one of them could break it. Then their father untied the bundle and handed them the sticks one at a time. This time they snapped every stick with no trouble at all. “You see, my boys,” he said. “As long as you stand together, you’ll be more than a match for your enemies. But if you quarrel and go your separate ways, you’ll be so weak that anyone who attacks you can do as he likes with you.” **Moral:** Union is strength. --- ## About this tale The Bundle of Sticks is an Aesop fable. The oldest text we read is a Greek prose fable printed by Émile Chambry: a farmer’s children are always quarreling, so he has them bring a bundle of rods that none of them can break. Our English story follows the translation of Aesop by V. S. Vernon Jones, who calls this fable Father and Sons. We stay close to his version but tell the sons’ attempts one at a time, and we print his moral, “Union is strength”, under the story. Our title is the one Joseph Jacobs uses. > As long as you stand together, you’ll be more than a match for your enemies. > > Vernon Jones, 1912: united you will be more than a match for your enemies: but if you quarrel and separate, your weakness will put you at the mercy of those who attack you ### Vernon Jones and Jacobs side by side | | Vernon Jones | Joseph Jacobs | | --- | --- | --- | | Title | Father and Sons | The Bundle of Sticks | | The father | “a certain man” | an old man on the point of death | | The sons | “several”, each tries in turn | the eldest first, then the others | | Who fetches it | the sons | his servants | | Who unties it | the father | the sons, when he tells them to | | What he says | a warning about their enemies | “You see my meaning” | | Moral | “Union is strength” | “Union gives strength” | ### What our text does In our story the father is simply a man with several sons who quarrel all the time. Talking has done no good (that line is ours, not Vernon Jones’s), so he sends the sons out for a bundle of sticks and asks each of them in turn to break it across his knee. We tell the attempts one by one: the first son tries, then the next, then all the others, and the bundle holds every time. Then the father unties it and hands out the sticks singly, and the sons snap every one with no trouble. He closes with a warning: as long as they stand together they are more than a match for their enemies, but apart they will be so weak that anyone who attacks them can do as he likes with them. Nobody is hurt and nobody dies; the only trouble in the story is the brothers’ quarreling. Vernon Jones’s moral, “Union is strength”, is printed under our text. ### Other tellings, and whether the father dies In the Greek prose fable printed by Chambry the father is a farmer whose words have failed. He has his children bring a bundle of rods, and when they cannot break it, he unties it and they break the rods easily. Roger L’Estrange makes the bundle a rod of twigs and has the children unbind it themselves; the father’s advice is “Keep Together and Y’are Safe, Divide, and Y’are Undone.” In La Fontaine’s verse a dying old man asks his three sons to break a bundle of darts tied together, then separates the darts and breaks them himself; after his death the brothers fall out over the inheritance and lose all of it. George Fyler Townsend prints no moral at all. Jacobs’s father is an old man on the point of death, and La Fontaine’s dies before the fable ends. Ours, like Vernon Jones’s, is never said to be old or ill, and nobody in our story dies. Sources (claims checked against them on 2026-10-30): - 1912: Father and Sons, Aesop’s Fables: a new translation, trans. V. S. Vernon Jones, Gutenberg #11339 [our source] (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11339) - 1927: Les Enfants désunis du Laboureur, Ésope, Fables, ed. and trans. Émile Chambry, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1927, no. 86, pp. 77–80 (https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Fables_d%E2%80%99%C3%89sope_(trad._Chambry,_1927)/Les_Enfants_d%C3%A9sunis_du_Laboureur) - 1692: A Father and his Sons, Roger L’Estrange, Fables of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists, London, 1692, fab. LXII, p. 62 (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fables_of_%C3%86sop_and_Other_Eminent_Mythologists/Fable_LXII) - 1678: Le Vieillard & ses enfans, La Fontaine, Fables choisies, mises en vers, vol. 2, Paris, 1678, book IV, pp. 68–73 (https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Fables_de_La_Fontaine_(%C3%A9d._Barbin)/2/Le_Vieillard_et_ses_enfants) - 1922: The Bundle of Sticks, The Fables of Æsop, ed. Joseph Jacobs, Macmillan, 1922 (first ed. 1894), pp. 172–173 (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fables_of_%C3%86sop_(Jacobs)/The_Bundle_of_Sticks) - The Father and his Sons, Three Hundred Æsop’s Fables, trans. G. F. Townsend, London: George Routledge and Sons, p. 34 (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Three_Hundred_%C3%86sop%27s_Fables/The_Father_and_his_Sons) - Wikidata Q19897976, Perry 53 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19897976) --- - Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/the-bundle-of-sticks - Also known as: The Old Man and His Sons, The Father and His Sons - Author's country: Greece (https://talerie.com/en/tales/country/greece) - Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19897976 - Tale type: Perry 53 (per Wikidata) - Source: Aesop's Fables: a new translation, tr. V. S. Vernon Jones (1912) (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11339) - Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: Aesop's Fables: a new translation, tr. V. S. Vernon Jones (1912) — translation: author died 564 BC (+70 passed); translator V. S. Vernon Jones died 1955 (+70 passed) - License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)