# The Fox and the Crow

_Aesop_ · 1 min read · ages 4-9

A fox spots a crow perched in an oak tree holding a fine piece of cheese in her beak and sets out to win it for himself. He praises her so sweetly that she opens her beak to prove her voice, and out drops the cheese, which the fox snatches up before it reaches the ground.

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A crow had found a fine piece of cheese, and she carried it up into a tree and settled on a branch to enjoy it.

A fox came padding along below and saw her sitting there with the cheese in her beak. He wanted it for himself, and he began to think how he might get it.

He stopped under the tree, looked up, and spoke loudly enough for her to hear.

“What a splendid bird I see above me!” he said. “There is no other half so lovely. Look at the shine of those feathers. And if her voice is as sweet as she is beautiful, then surely she ought to be queen of all the birds.”

The crow was greatly flattered. To show the fox that she could indeed sing, she opened her beak and gave a loud caw.

Down came the cheese, of course, and the fox snatched it up before it reached the ground.

“You have a voice, madam,” he said. “What you lack is wits.”

**Moral:** Flattery is usually after something you are holding.

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- Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/the-fox-and-the-crow
- 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/)