Fables and Fabulists: Ancient and Modern

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past. Such are the stories related of Scandinavian and Grecian heroes and gods; beings, some of whom doubtless had an actual human existence, and were wise and valiant and powerful, or

fts of reason and speech on the humbler subjects over whom he exercises sway, and so has ample scope for his imaginative faculty; but there is no attempt on his part at any serious make-believe in his inventions.

stood in this latter sens

king the same view, defines the fable as 'a false discourse resembling truth.'[2] The harshness of both these definitions is scarcely relieved by their quaintness. To assert that the fable is a lie or a falsehood does not fairly represent the fact. A lie is spoken with intent to deceive. A fable, in its relation

a narrative in which beings irrational, and sometimes inanimate-quod arbores loquantur, non tantum fer?[

are made the moral agents.' G. Moir Bussey states that 'the object of the author is to convey some moral truth to the reader or auditor, without usurping the province of the professed lecturer or pedant. The lesson must therefore be conveyed in an agreeable form, and so

e virtue which we gather from a fable or an allegory is like the health we get by hunting, as we are engaged in an agreeable pursuit that draws us on with pleasure, and makes us insensible of the fatigues that accompany it.'[7]

inition may

for example, as a fairy tale. Now, a fairy or other fanciful tale usually or invariably contains some romance and much improbability; it often deals largely in the superstitious, and it is not necessarily the vehicle for conveying a moral. The very opposite holds good of a fable. Although animals are usually the actors in the fable, there is an air of naturalness in their assumed speech and actions. The story may be either highly imaginative or baldly matter-of-fact, b

and new, abound with them. The most beautiful example in the Old Testament is that of Nathan and the ewe lamb,[8] in which David the King is made his own accuser. This was a favourite mode of conveying instr

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y Walter Pater. London: Macm

rsion by Kimedoncius, were printed from a MS. in the Palatine Library at the beginning of the seventeenth cen

ot only wild beasts.'-Ph

say on

cted,' by G. Moir Bussey. Lon

inted by William Caxton in 1484. Lond

,' No. 147, vol

amuel x