poem re fox and well

[sylvie]

but not Reynard - 'I have a story sad to tell about a fox fell down the well' - anyone know the rest or anything about it?

[Quizmonster]

I'm not familiar with the poetic version you refer to, but if you click http://www.bartleby.com/17/1/82.html a link will take you to a website with Aesop's fable of 'The Fox & the Goat', which certainly refers to a cunning fox that had fallen down a well. Have a look.

[sylvie]

thanks and I did have a look but it is definitely a poem - rhyming couplets

[Quizmonster]

Sylvie, I couldn't leave you utterly poemless. Judging by the opening two lines you offered, this wasn't exactly a 'great' poem by Shelley, Wordsworth or the like, so I figured that I could do at least as well. Here, therefore, is my version of the Aesop fable in rhyming couplets:

I have a story sad to tell

About a fox fell down a well.

He tried and tried but could not gain

The edge to make him free again.

A goat looked down with puzzled stare

And said: "What are you doing there?"

"When drought is coming, Ma'am," he said,

"Such water-holes are best, I've read.

Join me here and you'll survive

Though others die, we'll be alive."

The goat jumped down on his advice;

The fox leapt on her in a trice.

Her rump, her back and then her nape,

Her horns at last let him escape.

Before he left her to her fate

This moral lesson he did state:

"Advice that's given in distress

Should be trusted that much less!"

I hope that's of some use to you.

[sylvie]

Thank you, it's very good! The one I want must be at least 75 years old, my father learnt it as a child and it's got a lot in it about a fox going up and down in a bucket. It is also VERY long. How kind of you to take the time Sylvie