The Mice summoned a council to decide how they might best devise means of warning themselves of the approach of their great enemy the Cat. Among the many plans suggested, the one that found most favor was the proposal to tie a bell to the neck of the Cat, so that the Mice, being warned by the sound of the tinkling, might run away and hide themselves in their holes at his approach. But when the Mice further debated who among them should thus “bell the Cat,” there was no one found to do it.
Credits
Aesop was an ancient Greek storyteller, believed to have lived around the 6th century BCE, whose fables have been retold across cultures for over two millennia. "The Mice in Council" is the origin of the still-popular phrase "belling the cat," used to describe a plan that sounds good in theory but is impossible in practice. His stories are celebrated for distilling sharp moral truths into remarkably few words.
