I believe the following story qualifies as folklore. The general canvas goes thusly:
- A town is besieged by an army, trying to starve it into surrendering
- The town is running short in supplies
- The town makes a show of being full of food to the besieging army. Details differ (cf. below) but it usually involves wasting all the food that’s left.
- The besieging army believes the town can hold for a long time, and lifts the siege.
Examples:
- Frontinus, coming a few centuries after the supposed events, describes a story in Strategemata (source; footnote 74 has the same story in other sources):
The Milesians were at one time suffering a long siege at the hands of Alyattes, who hoped they could be starved into surrender. But the Milesian commander, Thrasybulus, in anticipation of the arrival of envoys from Alyattes, ordered all the grain to be brought together into the market-place, arranged for banquets to be held on that occasion, and provided sumptuous feasts throughout the city. Thus he convinced the enemy that the Milesians had abundance of provisions with which to sustain a long siege
- Herculanus is the bishop of Perugia (Italy). Perugia is besieged by the Ostrogoths. Herculanus feeds "the last sack of grain to the last lamb", presumably arranges for it to be seen by the Ostrogoths. This time, the ruse fails; the Ostrogoths capture the city and execute Herculanus. The source seems to be Pope Gregory I, a contemporary source (but not an unbiased one)
- a folk etymology for the name of the city of Carcassonne (southern France). The city is under Saracen control and besieged by Charlemagne. Lady Carcas, a local princess, gathers all food that’s left, and finds it’s one sack of wheat (a high-status grain) and one pig (an animal that will eat anything). She feeds the former to the latter, then tosses the pig over the city walls. Charlemagne’s army leaves. (As the Wikipedia article indicates, Pepin the short captured Carcassonne when Charlemagne was 17, so the story cannot possibly be true as told.) The source seems to be oral tradition developing in the 12th century (again, much later than the supposed events).
- the Picokijada in Đurđevac (Croatia). Somewhere in the 16th century, the Ottomans besiege the city. The only food left is a rooster. An old woman suggests to shoot it into the Ottoman camp, with the argument that it’s not going to stop the city from starving anyway. The Ottoman army leaves, calling the townsfolk "roosters" (picoki). The town has apparently an annual celebration (see the Wikipedia article); the story was written down in the late 19th century but existed before in oral tradition.
As is typical for folk tales, the exact details vary - the town is presumably one that the listeners can identify with, and the exact method of deception is left to the teller’s choice.
I would welcome information about:
- how wide that folk tale has travelled (all examples above are in Western and central Europe; I have seen a similar story attributed to a Chinese general, but from a random forum user without a source attached)
- any information about the origin of all those stories (I realize that a common feature of myths is that there is no single, original, canonical version from which all other descend, but you never know)
- any other scholarly information about that tale format.
