Why the ant is a thief is one of Aesop's tales.
The tale[]
The first ant began life as a man. He was a landsman who, was uneady with the yield of his own work, kept casting greedy eyes over his neighbours’ crops and stealing them. His greed angered Woden so much that he shapeshifted him into the bug we call the ant. But even though his shape was new, his ways were of old. To this day he goes about the fields gathering other folks’ wheat and barley and stocking it up for himself.
§ This goal of this tale is to show that even the harshest doom does not make the evil man good.