The next fairy tale the Brothers Grimm wrote is about an old dog called Old Sultan. He’s an old sheep herder, who has grown so old, he no longer has any teeth, (And in the “Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics” anime series, he has lost a lot of his hearing, however, that’s not what we are discussing.) and according to the shepherd, he is now useless, and he argues with his wife that they should put him down, whereas the wife argues that he should be able to live peacefully in retirement. Hearing this argument, he goes to his wolf, and asks his wolf friend, Wolf (No, they are not Ralph and Sam from Looney Toons) to help him with this situation.
So the Wolf puts together a plan to help Sultan out, to make him seem like he is a hero, so that the old couple doesn’t kill him, which they stage an attack by the wolf on the Shepherd’s infant son, in which after the Wolf grabs the child, Sultan would rescue him and return the son, which the Shepherd apologizes, and decides that Sultan should be pampered until his death.
Then, after all of this, Wolf comes by and tells him that he had a condition, saying that Sultan needs to let Wolf have as many sheeps as he wants, which Sultan declines, loyal to the Shepherd, something that angers the Wolf of accusing him of going back on his word, something Sultan never agreed to. He was told it was a generous gift given out of being old friends, and Sultan was hurt that Wolf swore to avenge himself. So Wolf went to find a Boar whom he employed for a duel against Sultan, as Wolf’s second.
The only person Sultan could find to be his second, was the three legged cat that was a barn cat. After the Cat scares off the Boar by sneaking up on him, the Boar rats out the Wolf who is waiting high in the trees. It was only then that the Wolf came down and apologized, and promised never to take advantage of Sultan ever again.
This is a short story that tells us a lot about the true nature of people. The old Shepherd thinks that what he is doing is right, when in reality it is wrong. Sultan protected them and took care of them from the beginning, and his reward was not just. It was when he reminded the Shepherd that he could still help protect the family that he should not have been put down. Luckily, when he learned his lesson, he decided that they shouldn’t just kill him like he was some mongrel, but he was a loyal member of the family.
Meanwhile, the Wolf came across as a friend, but he tried to take advantage of the aged dog, by using their friendship as leverage. But Wolf saw an opportunity and tried to take it, and manipulate his friend, to let him have a free meal, but it didn’t necessarily work out, as the old dog disagreed with the rewriting of the contract, and putting his loyalty and ethics first. He is very dishonest and thinks of what benefits him, and not the kindness and loyalty to an old friend.
This is a practice that occurs among many of us that has people in positions of power to use what “kindness” they give, to pull “favours”, after rewriting the agreed upon contract between the two people, one that was never agreed upon, and in the end, a lot of these people end up crashing and burning, ending up screwing themselves over, because of their lies and dishonesty.
Sultan is a harmless, gentle spirit that doesn’t have any ill will, and Wolf decided to take advantage of him when he needed help. Then what happens? As soon as the Boar gets in trouble, he sells Wolf out, to save his own skin. Friends that may have been there for a long time may decide to betray their old friends, and this will usually result in karma striking the guilty party in some way, because they overplay their hand.
It was a rather interesting thought that this seems to be the origin for the Looney Toons portion of Ralph and Sam, which are good friends, but their jobs are antagonistic towards each other, with Ralph who tries to hunt the sheep, and Sam who tries to protect the sheep, seeming like an unmoving statue.
It is funny to see them go to the clock and clock out for work, talking to each other about how a good work day they had… Although once Ralph was incredibly injured, Sam offered to do both jobs the next day for Ralph. A rather amusing result for this tale.
Yeah, I can see where Chuck Jones got the idea for Ralph and Sam, but he modernized the concept...
I’d never read this one, thanks for the intro and great review!