THE WOLF WHO DIDN’T WANT TO BE A WOLF

       There was a wolf that was a freak of nature. He hated eating meat and only fed on herbs.

        He learnt to discover the properties of the different plants, and to recognise them one by one. He would eat Lucerne and Angelica, Mallow flowers and many other plants, and even some fruit.

       Who knows why, but due to a trick of nature, he loved all the other animals and spent entire days playing with them.

        His fellow wolves pilloried him, tied a bundle of bramble thorns to his tail and kicked him out of the pack.

       One beautiful spring day, while the sun was shining warmly in the sky, the wolf made friends with some little birds and started to play with them in the flower-filled fields. A lame hare whose belly was sucked in from hunger, but who was very cunning, watched the wolf playing with the little birds and flabbergasted, he thought: “I have never seen anything like this!” he exclaimed to himself.

       The hare then very cautiously befriended the wolf.

       The lame hare felt inferior to his fellow hares, and as he wanted to become their leader, he thought:” It will be easy to bring him with me and make them believe that I have captured and thrashed a wolf!”

       This is what he did; he tied a long-thin twig around the wolf’s neck and then led him to his companions.

       To start with they all praised the skeleton-like hare, and celebrated by hailing him as leader of their flock; but once they realised the kind-heartedness of the wolf, they felt offended at having been swindled, and chased the deceiving hare away.

       So the hares thought that due to who knows what supernatural event, the wolves had all suddenly become good! And when the innocent creatures saw other wolves, they approached them lovingly, but to their great surprise they were torn to pieces and eaten.

       It was only a matter of days before all the hares from that part of the wood were devoured without pity!

       And the wolf that hated eating meat and only fed on herbs, thought: “If I had been a real wolf this wouldn’t have happened; the world works like this, and it cannot be changed radically, and he who tries to is doomed and only causes calamities!”

       Weeping, he climbed up to the edge of a ravine, and hurled himself into the abyss.