A wolf in shepherds clothing

The elders tell a story of a boy who was born not to a king or a noble man, but to a lowly shepherd in the fields. This child was not pretty, and he was not clever. In fact he seemed to perform poorly at almost every task he was given.

As time went on and he got older, the teachers began to lose all hope that this boy would learn to even be a man, and so they left him to his own devices. At a very young age he left his schooling, and sat in the field with the other herders, tending the tribal sheep as his father had done before him.

Nobody seemed to notice that although he had been forgotten by the elders, he very much had the ear of his peers. He would sit and speak of becoming the most powerful chief in the land, and all the lands beyond.

While the adults dismissed his stories as the workings of the active imagination of a child, he easily convinced his fellows in the fields that his ambitions were not only a possibility, but that they were an absolute certainty.

And so, with his silly grin, his fat belly and child-like demeanor he began to amass followers in the tribe. He was able to hide in plain site - after all nobody of any intelligence would pay him any respect, let alone imagine that he could be a leader of people.

As he grew his followers became many. They were the most loyal, the strongest of the tribe. He convinced them that the “clever” leaders did not have the people’s best interests at heart. And his fans grew tenfold in number, and then tenfold again.

When the elders began to take notice, he would simply give a big fat pot bellied laugh and incredulously proclaim, “who would possibly follow me?” and in his teddy bear manner he would allay the fears of the alarmists, convincing them time and again that he was too harmless to be a threat or a danger.

When his number was great, he set about convincing the elders to remove the king and make him their new leader. He promised wealth and prosperity to the tribe, he promised that the elders’ families would always have everything they desired whilst he ruled.

The shepherd-boy-made-good finally fulfilled his promise to become king, and as he ascended the throne of the richest and most powerful tribe in the land, all the people lauded and cheered and swore to defend their laughing king with their bodies and their lives.

The old deposed king muttered under his breath, “if that’s what the people want then I will leave, but be warned, he will destroy you and your land”. Nobody listened, and if they did hear then nobody cared.

After the ceremonies and parties and drinking and celebrations, the new king and his self-appointed and loyal advisers had to get down to ruling the land. You see, it takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice to run a great kingdom.

But this king was not interested in leading his people. His attention was elsewhere.

In his mind, he believed that the old king and his followers would not sleep until they were once again kings and noblemen. Even more alarming to him was that he knew that there were other shepherds sitting in the fields who were even more ambitious and disarming and charismatic than he was. He needed to defend his kingdom not only from invaders from the outside, but from forces on the inside too.

The time that the kings of old had spent looking after the people was now spent plotting the demise of any and all of his perceived detractors. He ensured that his loyal elders buffered him against his so called enemies by giving each elder more land, more power and more riches. It would be the elders after all that would need to depose him, and if they were on his side then he would be untouchable.

Every elder began to demand more to stay loyal. Soon there was no more to give. The people began to suffer terribly without food and shelter, as the king and his elders lived large and took their share tenfold and more.

I would like to share a concise and happy end to this tale of the elders, but it is not to be.

There was no deposition, there was no rightful trial or graceful exit. Today nobody truly knows what happened to this most powerful tribe in land.

When the resources were gone and the riches were spent, and the people could no longer live on that once abundant land, they drifted away. There was no reason to stay, and so they became refugees at the mercy of other kings and tribes in far away places.

The kingdom soon faded and the king and his elders left too once there was nothing left to plunder or lord over.

The elders of many tribes now know that the devil exists in many forms, not all of which look evil. Sometimes the devil disguises himself as the laughing village idiot who is loved by many. The elders tell this tale and warn their children to beware of the wolf in shepherds clothing.