Half a Loaf
Is Better
Than None

Contents

1. The Boy and the Filberts (Aesop).

2. The Greedy Monkey (Pakistan).

Return to D. L. Ashliman's index of folklore and mythology electronic texts.

The Boy and the Filberts

Aesop

A boy put his hand into a jar of filberts and grasped as many as his fist could possibly hold. But when he tried to pull it out again, he found he couldn't do so, for the neck of the jar was too small to allow the passage of so large a handful. Unwilling to lose the nuts, but unable to withdraw his hand, he burst into tears. A bystander, who saw where the trouble lay, said to him, "Come, my boy. Don't be so greedy. Be content with half the amount, and you'll be able to get your hand out without difficulty."

Do not attempt too much at once.

• Source: Æsop's Fables, translated by V. S. Vernon Jones (London: W. Heinemann, 1912), p. 61.

• Return to the table of contents.

The Greedy Monkey

Pakistan

Once upon a time a monkey noticed some wheat which had fallen into a small hollow in a rock. Thrusting in his hand, he filled it with the grain, but the entrance was so narrow that he was unable to draw it out without relinquishing most of his prize. This, however, he was unwilling to do, greedily desiring to have it all. So the consequence was that he remained without any, and finally went hungry away.

• Source: Charles Swynnerton, Indian Nights' Entertainment; or, Folk-Tales from the Upper Indus (London: Elliot Stock, 1892), no. 4, p. 7.

• This is an Aarne-Thompson type 68A folktale.

• Return to the table of contents.

Revised February 21, 2000.