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Boots and His Brothers:
"A king had his castle shadowed by a great oak tree, and had no well that held water year round. He declared that whoever cut down the oak and dug the well would have the princess and half the kingdom.

Three brothers, who had set out because their father was too poor to give them anything, were going to his palace. The youngest son heard something hewing, and went off. He found an axe that was hewing by itself, and it said that it had been waiting for him. He took it and went back, telling his brother that it had been an axe, and endured their ridicule. Again, he heard something digging, found a shovel digging by itself, and took it as well; then he wondered where a brook came from, and found not a spring but a walnut, which he stopped up with moss.

When they reached the king, he had decreed that whoever tried and failed would have his ears clipped off and be put on a deserted island. The two older tried, failed, and suffered the punishment. The youngest set the axe to cut down the tree, the spade to dig the well, and the nut to fill it.

The story says that it was just as well that the brothers lost their ears, because it spared them hearing people's comments that their youngest brother had not been a fool to wonder."

Boots Who Ate a Match With the Troll:
"A farmer sent his sons to cut wood in a forest he owned, to pay off debts. A troll threatened them as they came, one by one; the two older ones allowed themselves to be chased off, but the youngest asked for food. When the troll threatened him, the boy pulled out some cheese, claiming it was a stone, and squeezed it until whey came out. When he threatened to deal with the troll as he had with the "stone", the troll offered to help him with the wood-cutting.

The troll suggested that he come home with him. Then he went to build up the fire and sent the boy for water. The boy realized he could not carry the huge buckets, so he declared they were too small, and he could just fetch the spring. The troll exchanged chores with him.

When the porridge was made, they had an eating match, but the boy put more into his scrip than into his stomach, and when it was full, he cut a hole in it. The troll said he could eat no more. The boy suggested that he cut a hole in his stomach, which would let him eat as much as he liked, and it didn't hurt much.

The troll did so, and died, and the boy took his gold and silver and paid off the family debt."

The Boy Who Cried Wolf:
"The tale concerns a shepherd boy who repeatedly tricks nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock. When a wolf actually does appear, the villagers do not believe the boy's cries for help, and the flock is destroyed. The moral at the end of the story shows that this is how liars are not rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them."[2] This seems to echo a statement attributed to Aristotle by Diogenes Laërtius in his The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, where the sage was asked what those who tell lies gain by it and he answered "that when they speak truth they are not believed".[3] William Caxton similarly closes his version with the remark that "men bileve not lyghtly hym whiche is knowen for a lyer".[4]

The story dates from Classical times but, since it was recorded only in Greek and not translated into Latin until the 15th century, it only began to gain currency after it appeared in Heinrich Steinhowel's collection of the fables and so spread through the rest of Europe. For this reason, there was no agreed title for the story. Caxton titles it "Of the child whiche kepte the sheep" (1484), Hieronymus Osius "The boy who lied" ("De mendace puero", 1574), Francis Barlow "Of the herd boy and the farmers" ("De pastoris puero et agricolis", 1687), Roger L'Estrange "A boy and false alarms" (1692), George Fyler Townsend "The shepherd boy and the wolf" (1867). It was under the final title that Edward Hughes set it as the first of ten "Songs from Aesop's fables" for children’s voices and piano, in a poetic version by Peter Westmore (1965).

Teachers have used the fable as a cautionary tale about telling the truth but a recent educational experiment suggested that reading "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" increased children’s likelihood of lying, while a book on George Washington and the cherry tree decreased it dramatically.[5] The suggestibility and favourable outcome of the behaviour described therefore seems the key to the moral nurture of the young. When dealing with the moral behaviour of adults, however, Samuel Croxall asks, with reference to political alarmism, "when we are alarmed with imaginary dangers in respect of the public, till the cry grows quite stale and threadbare, how can it be expected we should know when to guard ourselves against real ones?"[6]

The idiomatic phrase "cry wolf" has been frequently used in the titles of films, books and lyrics, but these rarely refer directly to the fable."

The Boy Who Found Fear At Last:
"A woman had an only son. During a storm, she told him to shut the door because she felt frightened. He asked her what she meant. When she could not make him understand, he set out to find the fear she told him of.

He found robbers and sat with them by their fire. When they realized he did not fear them, they gave him the ingredients and sent him to a churchyard to cook them a cake. A hand from the grave asked for it, but the boy said that he did not give the food of the living to the dead, and rapped it with a spoon. Then they sent him to a pool. He found there a swing hanging over the pool with a child on it. A maiden told him that it was her brother and asked if she could climb on his shoulders to get him down; when he did, she started to strangle him with her feet. He threw her off, and she lost a bracelet that he took up.

He went on. An ogre demanded the bracelet, as it was his. They went before a judge, who decreed that neither of them had a right to it, and he would keep it until one of them brought him its partner. So the ogre and the boy both had to leave it.

He met up with a ship being wrecked. He swam to it and had the frightened sailors lower him into the sea. He found there a sea-maiden dragging down the ship. He freed the ship and chained her up.

He found a garden in which three doves flew in, and turned into maidens; one had been the hand in the graveyard, the second the one with the bracelet, and the third the seamaiden. They toasted his health. He appeared to them, and they gave him the matching bracelet.

He went on for a long time, but never found fear! One day he came to a crowded city. He was told the king had died and had no heir, so a pigeon would be released. Whoever it perched on would be king. It perched on the boy. He had a vision of himself trying to make his poor subjects rich, his bad ones good, and never succeeding and never be able to do as he wished. He was terrified, but they released more pigeons and they all flew to him.

Having found fear, the young man submitted to being king."

The Bronze Ring:
"The king despairs because his castle is surrounded by wasteland, instead of a fruitful garden. Advised that the remedy is a head gardener “whose forefathers were also gardeners”, he finds such a man. Under this gardener’s care the land does flourish, but a new problem arises.

The princess loves the gardener’s son – and will marry no one else. After she refuses her father’s choice of a husband (the prime minister’s son), he contrives a contest to settle the matter: the two men must go to a far destination and the first to return shall marry the princess. They do not go off on an equal footing. The Minister’s son is equipped with a fine horse and gold, while the gardener’s son is given a lame horse and copper.

Traveling swiftly, the minister’s son encounters a woman in rags. Weak and starving, she begs for his help. He spurns her.

The gardener’s son then encounters the woman. Generously, he gives her his purse and invites her to ride behind him. At the next city, heralds announce that the sultan is sick, and that whoever cures him can name the reward. The woman instructs the boy: find and slay three particular dogs, burn them and collect their ashes, then make way to the sultan. Place the dying sultan in a cauldron over a roaring fire, and boil him right down to his bones. Finally, arrange the bones properly and scatter the dogs' ashes over them. The gardener’s son does all these things and the sultan revives, in full hearty youth. Exactly as the witch suggested, the gardener’s son chooses the bronze ring for his reward and will accept nothing else. This ring contains a djinni who grants any wish. Now the gardener’s son continues his journey in a fabulous sailing ship, with a cargo of gems, sails of brocade and a hull of gold, crewed by a dozen handsome sailors, each dressed as richly as a king – all gifts of the bronze ring.

Eventually he meets his rival, who has spent all his fortune. Unrecognized, the gardener’s son offers to supply his rival with a ship - on the condition that the skin of his back be branded with the imprint of the bronze ring, heated in a fire. Once that is done, the gardener’s son asks the ring to prepare a ship with half-rotten timbers painted black, ragged sails and a maimed and sickly crew. In this ship the prime minister’s son returns, and claims his bride from the king.

As the unhappy princess’ wedding is being prepared, the king looks out on the harbor and wonders at the gleaming gold ship sailing into it. He is so taken by the sight of its captain (the gardener's son) that he invites him to the wedding and, after closer inspection, actually invites him to give away the bride.

The gardener’s son agrees, but when he sees the intended groom he objects, telling the king that the man is not worthy of the princess, being nothing more than his own slave. The prime minister's son denies this, but the brand of the bronze ring on his back serves as proof of the claim. The gardener’s son marries the delighted princess that day with the king's blessing. They have a short period of happiness.

Meanwhile, a student of the black arts has come to learn about the djinni of the bronze ring. When the prince sails off for a trip in his golden ship, he persuades the princess to trade him the ring for some red fish. Once he has the ring, he wishes the prince’s boat from gold into rotten wood, his crew from princely appearing men into hideous slaves, and the cargo of gems into ravenous black cats. (In the first edition of 'The Blue Fairy Book', reflects racist European stereotypes of the times, the magician is a crafty Jew and the debased crew become Negroes.)

Realizing that an enemy must now have his bronze ring, the prince sails on until he comes to an island inhabited by mice. The Mouse Queen sends an envoy to ask that the ship sail away with its terrible cargo of cats. The prince agrees, on the condition that his bronze ring be found and returned to him. The Mouse Queen contacts all the mice of the world, three of whom know that the magician keeps the bronze ring in his pocket when awake, and in his mouth when asleep. The three go to retrieve the ring. One of them tickles the sleeping magician’s nose with her tail, and he expels the ring from his mouth with a sneeze. After some misadventures, the mice manage to return the ring to the prince, who restores his golden vessel and hurries home to the princess. He captures the magician and has the man broken into pieces by being tied to the tail of a savage mule."

Brother and Sister:
"A brother and sister were poor. Once a chance to do some work let the brother buy some sardines. He gave them to his sister to keep for their evening meal. Three women came by their house and asked to rest. The sister let them in and gave the sardines. The women gave her that when she combed her hair, pearls would fall from it; when she washed her hands, the basin would fill with fish; and when she dried her hands, the towel would fill with flowers. She was able to give her brother mullet rather than the sardines. He demanded to know how she had gotten it, but was pleased once she told him. He went to sell the pearls. He was hauled before the king, because no one would believe he had not stolen the pearls. He told the king his story, and the king resolved to marry his sister.

The brother went back to get his sister. When they were on shipboard, they met a gypsy; the sister told her what they were doing, and the gypsy turned her into a bird, by sticking a pin in her head, to take her place, but she could do none of the things that the sister could do. The king was enraged; he threw the brother into prison and set the gypsy to mind the turkeys.

The sister, as a bird, flew into the king's garden and sang of her story. The next day, the king set cages to catch her. Once she was caught, he stroked her, found the pin, and pulled it out. The sister took her own form and showed that she could do what her brother had said. The king freed her brother, married her, and had the gypsy torn to pieces"

The Brown Bear of the Green Glen:
"A king was losing his sight and his ability to walk. His oldest two set out for water to cure him. The youngest son, John, known as a fool, set out too, and found his brothers in the first town. He went on. He climbed a tree to spend the night, but a bear with an ember in its mouth came and got him down by threatening to climb up. The bear caught a deer and fed him the cooked meat. In the morning, it had him ride it. Every night, it had him stay with a giant by saying that the brown bear of the green glen had sent him, but the third giant wrestled with him. As the bear had directed, when the giant had him down, he said that if the brown bear of the green glen were there, it would not go well with him; the bear appeared.

The giant ordered a sheep carcass laid before the door. He told John that an eagle would eat it, and he was to cut the wart from its ear without drawing a drop of blood. The prince did so and the eagle carried him off to the Green Island for the water to cure his father. There, he got the water, and also a whiskey bottle that never emptied, a loaf that grew no smaller when slices were cut off, and a cheese that was the same; he also kissed a sleeping beautiful woman.

The eagle carried him back. He showed the giant the whiskey bottle, and the giant offered him money, a saddle and bridle for it. He agreed, but said the giant must give it to his sweetheart, if she came. The giant agreed. The next two giants, he sold the bread and cheese under the same conditions. He met his brothers in the town and told them to come home, but they set on him to kill him and stole the water. He recovered and called to a smith traveling by, who threw him into his cart. The iron got into his wounds and made him rough-skinned and bald.

The woman John had kissed gave birth to a son. A henwife gave her a bird that would jump to the head of the baby's father on seeing him. She set out, got the whiskey, the cheese, and the bread, and reached the king. She told him what had happened. The king had every man appear before her, but the bird did not jump on any of them. The king demanded if there were anyone else; the smith told of a rough-skinned servant, and John was brought. The bird jumped on him. The king knew him for his son, and asked what should be done to his brothers. John prescribed what they had done to him, and married the princess."