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Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson, which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying.
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to modern times through a number of sources and continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic media.
Welsh rarebit or Welsh rabbit is a dish consisting of a hot cheese-based sauce served over slices of toasted bread. The original 18th-century name of the dish was the jocular "Welsh rabbit", which was later reinterpreted as "rarebit", as the dish contains no rabbit. Variants include English rabbit, Scottish rabbit, buck rabbit, golden buck, and blushing bunny.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 210 in the Perry Index. From it is derived the English idiom "to cry wolf", defined as "to give a false alarm" in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and glossed by the Oxford English Dictionary as meaning to make false claims, with the result that subsequent true claims are disbelieved.
Laurentius Abstemius was an Italian writer and professor of philology, born at Macerata in Ancona. His learned name plays on his family name of Bevilaqua (Drinkwater), and he was also known by the Italian name Lorenzo Astemio. A Neo-Latin writer of considerable talents at the time of the Humanist revival of letters, his first published works appeared in the 1470s and were distinguished by minute scholarship. During that decade he moved to Urbino and became ducal librarian, although he was to move between there and other parts of Italy thereafter as a teacher.
In folklore, a simpleton is a person whose foolish actions are the subject of often-repeated stories. Simpletons are also known as noodles, fools, and gothamites. Folklore often holds, with no basis in fact, that certain towns or countries are thought to be home to large numbers of simpletons. The ancient Greeks told tales of stupid populations in Abdera and other cities; in Germany, men of Schilda are conspicuous in these stories; in Spain hundreds of jokes exist about the supposed foolishness of the people from Lepe; and in England, the village of Gotham in Nottinghamshire is reputed to be populated by simpletons. In Sri Lanka whole districts in the central, southern, and western provinces are credited with being the abode of foolish people.
The Bear and the Travelers is a fable attributed to Aesop and is number 65 in the Perry Index. It was expanded and given a new meaning in mediaeval times.
The Boy and the Filberts is a fable related to greed and appears as Aarne-Thompson type 68A. The story is credited to Aesop but there is no evidence to support this. It is not included in either the Perry Index or in Laura Gibbs' inclusive collection (2002).
The Cock, the Dog and the Fox is one of Aesop's Fables and appears as number 252 in the Perry Index. Although it has similarities with other fables where a predator flatters a bird, such as The Fox and the Crow and Chanticleer and the Fox, in this one the cock is the victor rather than victim. There are also Eastern variants of this story.
The miller, his son and the donkey is a widely dispersed fable, number 721 in the Perry Index and number 1215 in the Aarne–Thompson classification systems of folklore narratives. Though it may have ancient analogues, the earliest extant version is in the work of the 13th-century Arab writer Ibn Said. There are many eastern versions of the tale and in Europe it was included in a number of Mediaeval collections. Since then it has been frequently included in collections of Aesop's fables as well as the influential Fables of Jean de la Fontaine.
The drowned woman and her husband is a story found in Mediaeval jest-books that entered the fable tradition in the 16th century. It was occasionally included in collections of Aesop's Fables but never became established as such and has no number in the Perry Index. Folk variants in which a contrary wife is sought upstream by her husband after she drowns are catalogued under the Aarne-Thompson classification system as type 1365A.
The Facetiae is an anthology of jokes by Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459), first published in 1470. It was the first printed joke book. The collection, "the most famous jokebook of the Renaissance", is notable for its inclusion of scatological jokes and tales, six of the tales involving flatulation humor and six involving defecation.
The Old Woman and the Doctor is a story of Greek origin that was included among Aesop's Fables and later in the 4th century CE joke book, the Philogelos. It is numbered 57 in the Perry Index.
The Fox and the Woodman is a cautionary story against hypocrisy included among Aesop's Fables and is numbered 22 in the Perry Index. Although the same basic plot recurs, different versions have included a variety of participants.
"The Astrologer who Fell into a Well" is a fable based on a Greek anecdote concerning the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales of Miletus. It was one of several ancient jokes that were absorbed into Aesop's Fables and is now numbered 40 in the Perry Index. During the scientific attack on astrology in the 16th–17th centuries, the story again became very popular.
The Assand his Masters is a fable that has also gone by the alternative titles The ass and the gardener and Jupiter and the ass. Included among Aesop's Fables, it is numbered 179 in the Perry Index.
Developed by authors during Renaissance times, the story of an ass eating thistles was a late addition to collections of Aesop's Fables. Beginning as a condemnation of miserly behaviour, it eventually was taken to demonstrate how preferences differ.
Hercules and the Wagoner or Hercules and the Carter is a fable credited to Aesop. It is associated with the proverb "God helps those who help themselves", variations on which are found in other ancient Greek authors.
Jest books are collections of jokes and humorous anecdotes in book form – a literary genre which reached its greatest importance in the early modern period.
The fable of how the horse lost its liberty in the course of settling a petty conflict exists in two versions involving either a stag or a boar and is numbered 269 in the Perry Index. When the story is told in a political context, it warns against seeking a remedy that leaves one worse off than before. Where economic circumstances are involved, it teaches that independence is always better than compromised plenty.
References
- Hurwood, B.J. (translator), The Facetiae of Giovanni Francesco Poggio Braccioline, London 1968.
- Lisieux, I. (publisher), The Facetiae or Jocose Tales of Poggio, vol. 2, Paris 1879, archived online
- ↑ An edition titled Shakespeare's Jest Book – a hundred mery talys was published in 1866, edited by Herman Oesterley
- ↑ This was originally published under the title Shakespeare's Jest Book in 1815 and was given the more misleading title The Hundred Merry Tales or Shakespeare's Jest Book in a reprint of 1831.
- ↑ A Hundred Merry Tales – the earliest English jest book, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, London 1887, p.xii
- ↑ Rory McKeown, "Brevity, Wit, and Prosperity: The Reception of Jesting"
- ↑ Lisieux
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