The Thief and His Mother – An English fairy tale with a list of vocabulary and a podcast to improve your listening and reading comprehension and expand your academic vocabulary
Source of story: Gutenberg Project at www.gutenberg.org
The Thief and His Mother
A boy stole a lesson-book from one of his schoolfellows and took it home to his mother.
She not only abstained from beating him, but encouraged him. He next time stole a cloak and brought it to her, and she again commended him.
The youth, advanced to adulthood, proceeded to steal things of still greater value. At last he was caught in the very act, and having his hands bound behind him, was led away to the place of public execution.
His mother followed in the crowd and violently beat her breast in sorrow, whereupon the young man said, “I wish to say something to my mother in her ear.”
She came close to him, and he quickly seized her ear with his teeth and bit it off. The mother upbraided him as an unnatural child, whereon he replied:
“Ah! if you had beaten me when I first stole and brought to you that lesson-book, I should not have come to this, nor have been thus led to a disgraceful death.”
Related idiom or proverb
Nip the evil in the bud.
to prevent something unpleasant from growing and becoming an issue by stopping it as soon as it appears
Source of definition: LELB Society
English vocabulary and expressions
- To abstain: to refrain from something
- Cloak: a loose outer piece of clothing without sleeves
- To commend: to praise, encourage, speak well of
- Execution: putting to death, death penalty, capital punishment
- To beat one’s breast / chest: to publicly display that you’re extremely contrite or sorry
- Whereupon: as a result of which, as so
- To upbraid: to scold, castigate, reproach
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