✦ A Classic Story ✦

The Dove and the Ant

One of Aesop’s Fables

A Dove saves a drowning Ant with a blade of straw. Soon after, the tiny Ant finds a way to save the Dove.

Watch the Read-Aloud Read the Fable

Read aloud by Storyland Classics ✦ 59 seconds ✦ Watch on YouTube

✦ The Story ✦

The Dove and the Ant

From The Æsop for Children (1919), the edition published online by the Library of Congress. Public domain.

A Dove saw an Ant fall into a brook. The Ant struggled in vain to reach the bank, and in pity, the Dove dropped a blade of straw close beside it. Clinging to the straw like a shipwrecked sailor to a broken spar, the Ant floated safely to shore.

Soon after, the Ant saw a man getting ready to kill the Dove with a stone. But just as he cast the stone, the Ant stung him in the heel, so that the pain made him miss his aim, and the startled Dove flew to safety in a distant wood.

The moralA kindness is never wasted.

✦ About the Story ✦

One Good Turn

Aesop is said to have been a storyteller in ancient Greece more than 2,500 years ago. Whether or not he was a single real person, the short animal tales told under his name have been retold in almost every language, and each one ends with a lesson, or moral. This telling comes from The Æsop for Children, a 1919 collection illustrated by Milo Winter that is still a favorite with families and teachers.

In The Æsop for Children this fable is called “The Ant and the Dove.” It shares its moral with “The Lion and the Mouse”: even the smallest creature can repay a kindness.

✦ Talk About It ✦

Questions to Share

How did the Dove help the Ant?
How did the Ant help the Dove in return?
Can you think of a time when someone helped you, and you helped them back?

✦ Keep Reading ✦

More Stories to Enjoy

The Tortoise and the Hare

One of Aesop’s Fables

The Ants and the Grasshopper

One of Aesop’s Fables

All Stories

Fairy tales, fables, and folktales read aloud.