What is a Fable?

Fables are stories intended to teach a lesson, and animals often speak and act like human beings.

LRA 3.1

Elements to Remember

ANIMALS are usually the main

characters

The plot and characters are SIMPLE

Very short stories teach a MORAL or

LESSON

SETTING is common and nonspecific

Author uses ANTHROPORMORPHISMLRA 3.1

Aesop

Aesop was a slave that lived about 550 BC.

He is famous for his fables.Legend says he was granted freedom

from his master because he enjoyed the stories so much.

Aesop didn’t write down any of his fables. After his death, many were written down by others who had heard them.

Aesop(Painting, c. 1638, by Diego Velasquez.Museo del Prado, Madrid)

One hot summer’s day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. “Just the things to quench my thirst,” quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: “I am sure they are sour.”

In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.

"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?“

"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same.”

“Why bother about winter?” said the Grasshopper; “we have got plenty of food at present.”

But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil. When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food, and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer. 

Once a lion trapped a mouse under it’s large paw. The mouse pleaded

for it’s life, so the lion let it go. Later the lion became entangled in a hunter’s net and roared in distress. The mouse rushed to

help. “You’re too small to help,” said the lion. But the mouse

nibbled at the net until the lion was free.

A stag, gazing at his reflection in a pool, remarked, “What glorious

antlers I have. But my legs are so skinny!” At that moment the stag

heard a pack of hunters and hounds approaching. His long

legs helped him flee into a thick wood, but his antlers became entangled in the branches.

Struggle as he might, he was trapped - and the hounds and

hunters closed in.

An old lion sent out word that he was ill and said that he would like the animals and birds to visit him. Most went but fox did not. Finally the lion sent for him, asking why he had not come to see him. The

wily fox replied, “I had planned to, but I noticed that although many

tracks led into your cave, none led out.”

A very large oak was uprooted by the wind, and thrown across a

stream. It fell among some Reeds, which it thus addressed: I wonder

how you, who are so light and weak, are not entirely crushed by these strong winds. They replied: You fight and contend with the wind, and consequently you are

destroyed; while we, on the contrary, bend before the least

breath of air, and therefore remain unbroken.

The wind and the sun argued over who was the stronger. They saw a traveller and agreed that whoever could get the traveller’s coat off

his body must be the stronger. The wind blew fiercely, but the harder

it blew, the tighter the man clutched his coat. Then the sun beamed it’s warm rays until the man was so hot he took off his

coat.

A dog decided to nap in a manger full of fresh hay intended for the family ox. At the end of that long day, the tired ox returned to the

stable to eat some of the hay in the manger, but the dog awoke and

barked and bit so fiercely that the ox could not eat the hay. "You are mean and vicious," said the ox.

"You don't eat hay, so why do you stop me from enjoying it?"