Grasshoppers have a reputation for making a nuisance of themselves on farms and in gardens. Not all grasshoppers are pests, but none are welcomed. General dislike for grasshoppers may have inspired a long-ago storyteller who created a tale about a lazy grasshopper and a tireless ant.
You probably remember this fable: the ant toils hard all summer to store food for the winter while grasshopper doesn’t do a lick of work. Instead of working, grasshopper sings away the days with no thought for the approaching cold.
The fable is supposed to teach us to think ahead and prepare for the future. In some happier versions of the tale, it’s clear by the end that grasshopper’s singing is important too.
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