The Lion Beaten by Man.....a fable by Jean de La Fontaine

A picture once was shown,
In which one man, alone,
Upon the ground had thrown
A lion fully grown.

Much gloried at the sight the rabble.
A lion thus rebuked their babble:—

That you have got the victory there,
There is no contradiction.
But, gentles, possibly you are
The dupes of easy fiction:
Had we the art of making pictures,
Perhaps our champion had beat yours!"


Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.
African Proverb

The Frog Who Wished To Be As Big As The Ox

There was a little Frog
Whose home was in a bog,
And he worried 'cause he wasn't big enough.
He sees an ox and cries:
"That's just about my size,
If I stretch myself--Say Sister, see me puff!"



So he blew, blew, blew,
Saying: "Sister, will that do?"
But she shook her head. And then he lost his wits.
For he stretched and puffed again
Till he cracked beneath the strain,
And burst, and flew about in little bits.



from Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks From the French of La Fontaine
written by La Fontaine, Jean de, 1621-1695
illustrated by Rae, John, 1882-1963
Translator Larned, W.T. (William Trowbridge)

The Lion Beaten by Man....a fable by Jean de la Fontaine

A picture once was shown,
In which one man, alone,
Upon the ground had thrown
A lion fully grown.

Much gloried at the sight the rabble.
A lion thus rebuked their babble:—

That you have got the victory there,
There is no contradiction.
But, gentles, possibly you are
The dupes of easy fiction:
Had we the art of making pictures,
Perhaps our champion had beat yours!"


Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.
An African Proverb

The Bear and the Two Companions by Jean de la Fontaine

As I think I said in a previous post, Jean de la Fontaine rewrote some of Aesop's fables.
This particular story is much longer than the orignal Aesop's fable which I will post in a day or so.

THE BEAR AND THE TWO COMPANIONS

Two fellows, needing funds, and bold,
A bearskin to a furrier sold,
Of which the bear was living still,
But which they presently would kill--
At least they said they would.

And, if their word was good,
It was a king of bears--an Ursa Major--
The biggest bear beneath the sun.
Its skin, the chaps would wager,
Was cheap at double cost;
'Twould make one laugh at frost--
And make two robes as well as one.

Old Dindenaut,[25] in sheep who dealt,
Less prized his sheep, than they their pelt--
(In their account 'twas theirs,
But in his own, the bears.)
By bargain struck upon the skin,
Two days at most must bring it in.

Forth went the two. More easy found than got,
The bear came growling at them on the trot.
Behold our dealers both confounded,
As if by thunderbolt astounded!
Their bargain vanish'd suddenly in air;
For who could plead his interest with a bear?

One of the friends sprung up a tree;
The other, cold as ice could be,
Fell on his face, feign'd death,
And closely held his breath,--
He having somewhere heard it said
The bear ne'er preys upon the dead.

Sir Bear, sad blockhead, was deceived--
The prostrate man a corpse believed;
But, half suspecting some deceit,
He feels and snuffs from head to feet,
And in the nostrils blows.
The body's surely dead, he thinks.
'I'll leave it,' says he, 'for it stinks;'
And off into the woods he goes.

The other dealer, from his tree
Descending cautiously, to see
His comrade lying in the dirt,
Consoling, says, 'It is a wonder
That, by the monster forced asunder,
We're, after all, more scared than hurt.
But,' addeth he, 'what of the creature's skin?
He held his muzzle very near;
What did he whisper in your ear?'

'He gave this caution,--"Never dare
Again to sell the skin of bear
Its owner has not ceased to wear."'

What is a Fable?

Hmmm...this should probably have been my first post.

What is a fable?

Once I asked myself the question, I realized I did not know what exactly made a story a fable as opposed to a folktale or fairytale. I decided that I should put up at least a short blog on what makes a fable a fable. So, I went to my favorite source, that I tend to take with a grain of salt but it's still good, wikipedia. I do check other sources but Wiki is so much fun! Wiki says.....

A fable is a brief, succinct story, in prose or verse, that features animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities), and that illustrates a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.

A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech and other powers of humankind.

I've checked and that's a pretty much agreed upon definition of a fable. Like most definitions there are exceptions. There are some fables that feature humans as well as or instead of animals, inanimate objects, etc. but your more traditional fable sticks to the definition above.

The most famous/best known fabulist is Aesop. Although a great deal is not really known or agreed upon about Aesop, most references agree that he was at one point a slave in Greece somewhere around the mid 6th century BCE.
Some of the fables that are called Aesop's fables were not written by him but the label "Aesop's fables" has also become a blanket term for collections of brief fables, usually involving personified animals.
A few of the best know Aesop's fables are The Fox and the Grapes, The Tortoise and the Hare, The North Wind and the Sun, The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, The Crow and the Pitcher and The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Enough about Aesop.

There are also other fairly well known fabulist, many barely known fabulist and even a few modern ones.

Vishnu Sarma (ca. 200 BCE), author of the Panchatantra.
Bidpai (ca. 200 BCE), author of Hindu and Buddhist animal fables.
Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452 – 1519)wrote quite a few fables (did you know that? I didn't).
Jean de La Fontaine (French, 1621 – 95)who wrote fairytales and fables and adapted some of Aesop's fables.
Ivan Krylov (Russian, 1769 – 1844).
Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910).
George Ade (1866 – 1944)he wrote a book entitled "Fables in Slang", very interesting look it up.
Franz Kafka (1883 – 1924).
James Thurber (1894 – 1961), yep him too, he wrote a book entitled "Fables For Our Time".
George Orwell (1903 – 50)...remember "Animal Farm" ?....a big fable.
Dr. Seuss (1904 – 91)yes, him too...think Yertle the Turtle and the Lorax both with lessons.
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904 – 91).
Italo Calvino (1923 – 85)
Arnold Lobel (1933 – 87), author of Fables which won a Caldecott Medal in 1981.

There are other fabulist, this is just a quick list of those I thought people would recognize. Some of the fables are not fables in the strictest sense of the word, mostly because they feature people, but otherwise they follow the accepted definition for a fable.