The Boy Who Cried Wolf

"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is one of the most famous Aesop's Fables.

One day, a boy watching the sheep screams to the nearby villagers that a wolf is coming. When they come to help, turns out the boy played a joke on them out of boredom. Irritated, the villagers return home until the boy pranks them a second time. Then a wolf actually appears and starts attacking the sheep. The boy screams for help but this time no one comes running, since the villagers believe he is only lying again. None of the sheep survive.

---

Tropes:

• The Big Bad Wolf: The wolf slaughters all the sheep in the end.
• Cassandra Truth: After lying twice about a wolf, the villagers stop listening to the boy even when they really should. In some versions, the villagers grudgingly come out a third time, but by then it is too late.
• Crying Wolf: The Trope Namer. Naturally, when the Compulsive Liar is actually telling the truth for once, no one believes him.
• Death by Adaptation: The wolf eats the sheep, but the boy survives. Other versions have the wolf kill the boy, too.
• Honesty Aesop: The shepherd boy's lies destroy his credibility, so that no one believes him when a wolf really does come.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The boy establishes himself as a liar, and consequently no one will listen to him when he's actually telling the truth.
• Nameless Narrative: No one has a name, just a title or brief description.
• The Noun Who Verbed: It is called "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".
• Rule of Three: Two false alarms before a third which is real. Naturally, the boy's dishonesty means the villagers run to the false alarms but fail to respond to the real one.

---