This week on Myths and Legends, we're in the stories of Aesop's fables, and you'll see why you shouldn't do a fad diet a grass opera is doing.

If a friend kicks you in the face when you're trying to flee from a bear, they might not be a real friend.

And if someone compliments you, when your mouth is full of raw meat, they might have ulterior motives.

The creature of this time is the stag on your roof,

if you happen to be an epic Norse warrior.

This is Myths and Legends, episode 415.

Bray, it ain't so.

Yeah. episode 415. Bray, it ain't so. This is a podcast where we tell stories from mythology and folklore.

Some are incredibly popular tales you might think you know, but with surprising origins.

Some are stories you might not have heard before, but really should.

Today we're back in Aesop's fables. Asop, if you didn't know, was a fabulous Greek fableist, and the definition

of a fable is a short story with a little life lesson. We have a lot of them all woven

together into a single story, so we'll jump into a donkey jumping in, to a river.

Oh no, I fell! The donkey cried out when crossing the river.

It came out as a he-haw sort of sound, though.

The whips of the salt peddler weren't nearly as bad as carrying his salt the miles and miles back home.

It was a happy accident the first time, him stumbling in the river at the beginning of their journey,

and feeling the burden on his back literally dissolve,

the next two times, including this one, were 100% on purpose.

It's not that the donkey minded doing hard work. He was a beast of burden. It's just that he didn't want to be a rented donkey for some jerk who was just going to overload and overwork him and pay his master and, no matter how good a job the donkey did, his master got the pay.

And that pay never seemed to trickle down to better oats and more leisure time.

So, he would stumble.

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