The price of giving false alarms: cautionary tales from three continents

From the Kamba ethnic group of Kenya:

A man named Ndothya would go out drinking every night. On his way home, just before reaching his house, he would call out to his wife Mbuti, yelling that a hyena was attacking him. His wife would come running with fire to drive off the hyena. Instead, she would find her drunk husband and no hyena.

One night, the man really did run into a hyena on the way home. He called for his wife, but Mbuti, thinking that it was one of her husband's usual lies, ignored him. Ndothya was bitten by the hyena.¹

From China:

The 8th century BCE King You of the Zhou dynasty was a debauched man. He divorced Queen Shen in order to install a beautiful lower-ranking consort, Bao Si, as queen in her place.

Now Bao Si had never smiled since the day she arrived at the king's palace. King You a offered thousand taels of gold to anyone who could make her laugh. The evil courtier Guo Shifu suggested lighting the alarm beacons that summoned the king's vassals to defend the capital in event of an attack.

King You did as Guo suggested. When Bao Si saw that the dukes and marquises of the vassal states had rushed to the capital with their armies only to find no threat, she started laughing. In this manner, King You made fun of his vassals multiple times.²

One day, the father of Queen Shen, angry at the way his daughter had been treated, attacked the capital with the military support of Quanrong nomads. The king tried to summon aid using the alarm beacons, but the vassal lords ignored him, thinking it was another trick. King You was killed by the Quanrong, who looted and burned his capital.³

Note that this story is probably more legend than history. Historical records have a different narrative of the conflict between the Lord of Shen (the deposed Queen's father) and King You. False alarms were not part of the historical account.⁴

From Greece:

The Boy Who Cried "Wolf"

Notes

1. "Ndothya and Hyena", East African Folktales, Dr. Vincent Muli Wa Kituku
2. 烽火戏诸侯, Baidu Encyclopedia. Web. 15 October 2017
3. Bao Si, Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 15 October 2017
4. Guo Shifu, Baidu Encyclopedia. Web. 15 October 2017