A Hunter, not very bold, was searching for the tracks of a Lion. He asked a man felling oaks in the forest if he had seen any marks of his footsteps or knew where his lair was. “I will,” said the man, “at once show you the Lion himself.” The Hunter, turning very pale and chattering with his teeth from fear, replied, “No, thank you. I did not ask that; it is his track only I am in search of, not the Lion himself.”
Credits
Aesop was an ancient Greek storyteller, believed to have lived around 620–564 BCE, whose fables have been retold across centuries and cultures. His stories are celebrated for distilling sharp moral truths into brief, memorable scenes. "The Hunter and the Woodman" is a particularly compact example of his craft, delivering its lesson on cowardice in just a handful of lines.
