Welcome to the Fox Tales series. The greedy Fox is a story where the fox learns a lesson of not being greedy.
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Transcript
It was deep mid-winter and Felix the Fox was very, very hungry.
But Felix was an extremely lazy fox and was always eyeing other people’s food and planning to steal food by hook or by crook.
His cunning mind was racing fast, "Where am I going to find something to eat this winter morning?" As he was wandering in the forest as he passed a big oak tree his nose twitched. “Is that some delicious food that I smell?”
He slowly retraced his steps back to the oak tree, trying to trace the source of the smell.
He stopped right in front of the oak tree. He took a deep breath to absorb the aroma.
With his mouth-watering, he thought, “It’s my lucky day. I can smell some delicious bread and meat inside this hollow in the trunk. Some shepherd must have left there and I can eat it before the shepherd arrives.”
He couldn’t resist anymore and made himself as small as he could and wriggled inside the hollow of the trunk.
Once he successfully crept inside, he relished the bread and the meat. He ate and he ate and he ate. And then he ate some more. He had never eaten so much food in his life.
"Marvellous," he said, licking his lips when he'd finished the very last crumb.
Children, what do you think happened to him?
Ready to listen ahead?
He was now so fat he couldn't get out of the hollow of the trunk.
He squeezed... and he squeezed ... and he squeezed yet again. But it was no good.
Of course, he hadn’t realized that he had eaten too much.
He thought that the tree had gotten smaller. He panicked.
He poked his head out of the hole and yelled, “Help! Get me out of this horrible hole.”
A weasel who was passing by stopped and asked, “What happened?”
The fox yelled out, “This tree is shrinking, it’s crushing me to death. Help, please help!”
The weasel lived nearby and used to pass this oak tree every morning as he went about doing his morning chores and every evening when he returned home, so he knew the oak tree well. He calmly explained, “I don’t think so. It looks about the same size when I passed it in the morning. Probably you have grown bigger.”
Felix with only his eyes poking out screamed, “Stop talking nonsense. And get me out. I am dying I tell you!”
Weasel knew the greedy fox had been eating too much and said, “Well it serves you right for eating too much. You’ll just have to stay there until you get thinner, then you can clamber out. Perhaps next time you won’t eat so much.”
Saying that the weasel waved bye-bye and walked away.
At noon the shepherd, who had safely placed his food in the tree hollow returned.
“Help,” shouted Felix, the greedy fox. But seeing a fox there, the shepherd got scared.
The fox said, “I can explain what happened.”
But the shepherd did not look back and ran away.
So, poor Felix had to stay in his miserable hole for 2 days and 2 long nights. But he never ever ate too much food again.
