The Wolf Queen and the Naughty Little Lamb

On a small farm between a gently gurgling stream and a dark, silent forest lived a farmer with his flock of sheep and the old sheepdog who watched over them. The sheep liked the farmer and felt safe with him, even though sometimes he took their lambs away and never brought them back again.

There was one lamb, a naughty little lamb, with wild and wiry hair like the bristles on the brush the farmers wife used to comb her hair in the evenings. He had eyes like the summer sky and always pushed and shoved to be the first out of the paddock in the morning. This lamb liked to run very fast and play tricks on the older sheep and the farmer and his dogs. One time he took a poo in the sheepdog’s food dish when the sheepdog wasn’t looking and laughed and danced when he ate it.

In the afternoons, the lamb would sit at the edge of the dark forest and listen to the bumbling bees and the chirping birds. When it was time to go back to the paddock for the night, the sheepdog always had to come and get him.

“You’re a very naughty little lamb,“ said the sheepdog. “I don’t like you because you pooed in my food once. But I will not let you go into the forest. The Wolf Queen lives there. If you go in, she will eat you up and no one will ever see you again.“

“The Wolf Queen can’t catch me,“ boasted the naughty little lamb. “I am the smartest and the fastest of all the lambs. I can walk as quietly as a butterfly flies, and jump as fast as the frogs in the stream. I will laugh and run away from her and end up safe and sound with my mama and the other sheep, and drink my milk and eat my oats and tell them all how brave I am.“

“You are a very silly little lamb,“ said the sheepdog. ”The Wolf Queen will look at you with her green, hungry eyes and you won’t be able to move even one of your silly little hairs. Look at this!“ The sheepdog turned around and showed the lamb a long, angry scar on the back of his left hind leg. “Once many years ago, when I was young and the strongest I ever was, the Wolf Queen stole one of our lambs. I chased her all the way to her cave by the lake in the middle of the forest. When I found her, she looked at me with her big green eyes, and I couldn’t move a muscle, not even to make my ears stand up! She came to me, and said ’What do you want with the Wolf Queen, silly little doggie?’ But I couldn’t even snarl and tell her I was not a silly little doggie, but the strongest sheepdog in the whole valley. She said, ‘This is no place for you, Sheepdog. Never come here again or it will end badly for you. This will help you remember.’ And with one sharp, white fang she gave me this.”

The naughty little lamb just peed on his leg and ran away laughing to the paddock.