You know the tale of the boy who cried “Wolf!”
It was written by Aesop after he was found with the mutilated corpse of a shepherd boy.
“He was torn apart by wolves,” he told the police. “He’d jokingly cried wolf once too many times, nobody believed him, and so nobody came to his aid when he was beset by wolves for real.”
The police wrote this down, and sent Aesop on his way.
Aesop walked down the road, stomach full of the boy’s blood.
His story had worked.
And it would work again the next time he grew hungry.