Although they are only small-scale farmers, skills such as winnowing wheat are necessary for survival.

The dearth of this world is taken for granted in the stories.  It is a backdrop to a life, the tales suggest, in which generosity is foolish and should not be expected.  Goodness and a morally blameless life guarantee no reward in this world, the pious and kind come to grief and only have themselves to blame for it.

The wise know this and act accordingly.  They respect the natural qualities of things.  Wolf, the predator, cannot be trusted with sheep; poor old women are necessarily stingy and cannot be held to their promises.  Indeed, deals with anybody are risky, because people, of course, will lie if it is to their advantage.  Thus Sparrow, unreasonably trustful as it is, emerges as a model loser who ends up literally trading its spoils for a song.  The wise know that foxes steal and deceive to get by, angry husbands beat their wives, and people are gullible.  Ladybug is wise for realizing her limitations in time and asking the right questions of potential husbands.

A woman baking flatbread on an iron griddle.

All the actors in “The Cat” are wise because they cleverly turn the cat’s request for their services into a bargaining advantage, the cow even barters her dung.  The luckless cat itself is wise because it knows when it is beaten and patiently endures the runaround in order to get back what it lost.  Wisest of all is the “Clever Little Bird” who manages to trick others into working for it as if for a princess.  The facts of life are plain, and whoever ignores them will come to harm.  As walnut’s mother in “Thief Mouse” learns, the wise are circumspect.

There are no “bad” characters in the stories.  Nobody is judged on moral grounds.  The parameter of ethics is the natural order of things.  Hardships and pain emerge not as a fallout of moral turpitude but as a byproduct of life, of every creature’s given nature, which makes fox long for meat and snake want to bite; which makes rooster crow, duck muddle up water and mouse steal wheat.  There is no point in blaming, only in knowing and, like the Clever Bird and the Fox, in being a little faster and a little smarter than the good neighbor next door.