Aesop's Fables

The tortoise who beats the hare, the fox who decides the grapes he cannot reach must be sour, the boy who cried wolf, the ant and the grasshopper, the lion spared by a grateful mouse: these short animal tales, each ending with a lesson, are attributed to Aesop, said to have been a slave in Greece in the sixth century BC.

The fables have been retold in every language and age, and their morals have become everyday sayings. In Arabic literature, the same tradition of wise animals lives in Kalila wa Dimna, and some writers linked Aesop with Luqman the Wise. They are perfect for reading aloud, one fable at a time.

Aesop is said to have been a slave on the Greek island of Samos in the sixth century BC who won his freedom through his wit. The historian Herodotus mentions him, and a later popular romance, The Life of Aesop, made him an ugly, clever storyteller who outwitted his masters and died unjustly at Delphi.

Whether or not he wrote them, the short animal fables told under his name, collected in Aesop's Fables, have been retold for two and a half thousand years. Their cousin in Arabic literature is Kalila wa Dimna.