I always liked the interpretation of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” as a cover story created by a negligent villagers that let a kid get devoured by wolves.

The villagers send a small boy alone to the top of a tall hill to look out for wolves. He sees a wolf approaching from the direction opposite the village and sounds the alarm. The villagers show up, but the wolf hears the alarm and runs away before the villagers get there. The villagers ignore the boy and his pleas that there was a wolf, scolding him for wasting their time. A few days later, this repeats. Finally, on the third time, the boy calls for help again, the villagers don’t show up, and the boy is devoured. When the villagers eventually find the resulting horror scene, they get their story straight to defend themselves. They tell people that the boy lied, that he laughed when they came to the top of the hill, when in reality he told them the truth, and they didn’t believe him.

What kind of reasonable adult sends a small child out alone to guard against viscous predators? That sounds like negligence to me. Exactly the type of thing someone would lie to cover up.