The Donkey in the Lion's Skin
- 2 minute read
- Ages 6-10
- Aesop's Fables
A donkey found a lion's skin lying in the forest where a hunter had left it out to dry.
He looked at it for a long time.
Then he pulled it over himself, and pushed his head into the head of it, and walked out into the fields.
An excellent day
It was the best day of his life.
The sheep saw him coming and scattered. The goats went straight through a hedge. A herd of cows he had known his whole life turned and ran without looking back, and a farmer dropped a bucket and climbed a gate.
The donkey walked from field to field, entirely unhurried, watching everything he met run away from him.
He had spent his whole life being pushed, loaded, prodded and ignored, and now the world moved out of his way. He could not stop. He went on and on until the afternoon.
One word
Late in the day he came to a field where an old farmer was mending a wall.
The farmer looked up, saw a lion, and went very still.
The donkey enjoyed that a great deal. He came a few steps closer and stood there being looked at, and the pleasure of it was so enormous that he could not hold it in any longer.
He opened his mouth and brayed.
It was a long, loud, unmistakable donkey bray, and it rolled across the whole field.
The farmer straightened up.
"I might have been fooled by the skin," he said, picking up his stick, "if you had only kept your mouth shut."
Moral of the story
A costume can hide what you look like but not what you are. The moment you open your mouth, people find out.
Questions and answers
- Where did the donkey find the lion's skin?
In the forest, where a hunter had left it out to dry.
- What happened when he walked into the fields?
Every animal he met ran away, and even a farmer dropped his bucket and climbed a gate to escape.
- Why did the donkey enjoy the day so much?
He had spent his whole life being pushed around and ignored, and for the first time everything moved out of his way.
- What gave him away?
He was so pleased with the farmer's fear that he brayed, and the sound was unmistakably a donkey's.
- What did the farmer say at the end?
That the skin might have fooled him if the donkey had only kept quiet.
Word meanings
- scattered
- Ran off in all directions.
- prodded
- Poked or pushed, usually to make someone move.
- bray
- The loud harsh sound a donkey makes.
- unmistakable
- So clear that it cannot be confused with anything else.
Questions about The Donkey in the Lion's Skin
What is the moral of The Donkey in the Lion's Skin?
The moral is that appearance can be borrowed but character cannot. The donkey's own voice revealed him the moment he could not stay quiet.
How is this different from The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing?
Both are about disguise, but the wolf is dangerous pretending to be harmless, while the donkey is harmless pretending to be dangerous. The wolf is caught by the disguise itself; the donkey is caught by his own pride.
Is the donkey a sympathetic character?
Many readers find him so. The fable makes a point of why the day mattered to him, which makes the ending sting rather than simply being funny.
What lesson can children take from this?
That pretending to be someone else rarely lasts, and that showing off is usually the thing that gives the game away.