(Can you guess which one is the (almost) real two millennium old fable?)
Donkey wished to be seen as the leader of the herd. He therefore found and donned a lion's pelt. When the other animals saw him, they respectfully stepped back or fearfully hid. But when he brayed out his orders for them, they recognized his voice and told him he was even more of an ass than he was before. The elephants said they did not notice the difference and asked for the return of the lion's skin.
Elephant at the Watering Hole
Elephant approached the watering hole where many animals were gathered. As they drank, the pool noticeably shrank and some of the smaller animals could no longer reach from the edge of the depression down to the surface of the water. Elephant flourished his trunk and remarked he could fetch the water and deliver it closer to them. The animals stepped aside and Elephant took a huge draining gulp. Then he pissed out a voluminous puddle at his rear feet.
The Sheep Rebel
The Sheep were finally fed up with their lowly station and poor treatment. They were fleeced of their warm coats and slaughtered for stew. They were not even invited to the afternoon tea party. But they did not know how to mount an effective campaign to demand changes. So they hired the Foxes to advise them. The Foxes brought in the Wolves as known problem solvers and soon the (remaining) Sheep had no further complaints.
Dogs and Wolves
Dogs had served as guardians and keepers of the peace for many years. But some animals insinuated that it was hard to tell them apart from Wolves, both in appearance and manner. The more often these comments were repeated, the more truth they seemed to breed, for the Dogs became more irritated. The meek dogs cowed by the criticism quit the force and the aggressive dogs joined the wolfpack. The chattering Monkeys replaced the Dogs as investigators and reporters of real and imagined infractions. Hard to say if anybody noticed. Wasn't it the monkeys who started the dog-wolf rumors?
The Octopus
The animals selected Octopus to be the arbitrator of their disputes. The sessions wherein they would meet with Octopus were both dramatic and confusing as his writhing tentacles seemed to wave independently in unpredictable directions while the unblinking eyes in his head offered little insight to his thoughts. But, by whatever method Octopus employed, when he tallied up the consensus of his appendages and his head and inked his decisions, that was what all the animals lived by. Many still thought his opinions were wrong or strange, but they would live by them until the next time they had an opportunity to argue with (or in front of) the Octopus.
The Chameleon
Chameleon decided to run for office and campaigned actively amongst all the animals. He blanched his skin when he talked to the sheep and darkened to meet with the crows. He donned stripes and spots with each such change of audience. His popularity soared in the polls. The week before the voting, his opponent and he appeared on a televised debate. Unfortunately, with the diversity of the broadcast audience, Chameleon did not know which suit to wear. Nobody recognized him at the debate and thought he had dropped out of the race. His opponent won in a landslide.
Beaver and the Stone Dam
Beaver had served as the Water Commissioner for many years. His dams and weirs were sturdy, integrated, and dependable in controlling the flow of the river and the rain through drought and storm. But one day, a flock of migrating geese arrived with tales of an immense dam built of stone that they had seen. Man, they told the animals, built such dams which were stronger and larger than any Beaver had ever attempted. The monkeys repeated the geese's tale, even after they had left to continue their migration. The animals felt that they could surely do anything Man could and even remarked upon the similarity of Man and Monkey. They fired Beaver and tore up his works to make room for a new stone dam. But, in fact, they did not know Man's secret of concrete and they could not build a Man dam. The rains washed them out of the valley the next spring.
Bears and Bulls
Bears and Bulls would trade anything. Most of the items which they swapped never had any useful function either to the bears or the bulls, although many other animals were eager to possess and use them. For their trading, the things were merely token – the more worthless, the faster the trades were made. In their eagerness to make the biggest and most elaborate deals, the traders gathered to themselves more and more items, depriving the other animals of their actual value. When the animals asked for some to use, the prices increased exorbitantly. Eventually the Bears and Bulls had almost everything for which they had no use and the rest had not enough to meet their needs.
