59 Fun Facts About Aesop's Fables

In the fable of the tortoise and the hare, what does the hare do that costs him the race?

Takes a nap, sure that his speed will save him. The old Greek moral blames the hare more than it praises the tortoise: natural talent, it says, is ruined by idleness.

In the Greek original of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, what does the wolf eat when no one comes?

The whole flock, as no one believes his real alarm; Aristotle is said to have remarked that this is all liars gain, and a later English verse version has the wolf eat the boy as well.

Which everyday expression comes from Aesop's fable of a fox who scorns the fruit he cannot reach?

Sour grapes: the fox decides that what he cannot have was never worth having. Swedish took over the fable with rowanberries instead, in the saying 'sour, said the fox'.

In the original Greek of The Ant and the Grasshopper, which insect begs the ants for food?

A cicada, tettix in the Greek and still 'la cigale' in the best-known French telling; English versions turned it into a grasshopper, and one Oxford translation makes it a cricket.

How does the mouse repay the lion that spared its life?

When Buddhist monks carried the story to China, the rescued animal became a tiger.

Why do the owners kill the goose that laid the golden eggs?

They expect a lump of gold inside it. Cut open, the bird proves no different from any other, so their greed costs them the golden egg it had been laying every day.

How does the thirsty crow reach the water low in the pitcher?

Drops in pebbles to raise the level. In a 2009 Cambridge study, rooks solved the same puzzle, dropping stones into a tube of water until a floating worm rose within reach.

In Aesop's fable of the wind and the sun, what must the winner make a passing traveller do?

Remove his cloak. The North Wind's hardest blasts only make the traveller wrap it tighter, while the Sun's steady warmth soon has him taking it off by himself.

In The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, why does the country mouse hurry home?

It prefers safety to rich food. After a scare sends both mice running from the banquet, the country mouse leaves for good, saying plain fare eaten in peace beats luxury eaten in fear.

Which Roman poet worked The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse into one of his Satires?

Horace used the tale to close a satire on why he preferred his quiet country farm to Rome. In his telling, barking mastiffs break up the city feast.

In Belling the Cat, the mice's plan collapses because of what?

Nobody will volunteer to attach the bell. The plan is cheered until an old mouse asks who will carry it out, which is why 'to bell the cat' came to mean taking on the dangerous part of a shared scheme.

Which phrase comes from a fable where one hunter claims the whole kill after a joint hunt?

The lion's share. In the fable the lion carves up the kill and then keeps every portion, his partners too afraid to object, though the phrase now means only the biggest part.

In The Bundle of Sticks, which lesson does a father teach his sons?

Unity gives strength. None of the sons can snap the tied bundle, yet each stick breaks easily alone, so the father warns that quarrelling will leave them just as easy for enemies to break.

How does the fox get the cheese away from the crow?

Flatters her into singing. The moment the crow opens her beak to prove her voice the cheese drops, and the fox trots off remarking that she has a voice but no wits.

The Crow and the Fox is the second poem in whose 17th-century French verse Fables?

Jean de La Fontaine. In his version the fox walks off with the cheese, telling the bird that the lesson it has just learned is surely worth the price.

In Aesop's fable, a dog carrying meat drops it after seeing what?

Its own reflection in the water. Taking it for another dog with a bigger prize, the dog snaps at the image and loses the real one to the stream.

In the fable behind the phrase 'dog in the manger', what does the dog do out of spite?

Guards fodder it cannot eat. The dog snarls at the hungry animals that could eat it, so the phrase came to describe anyone who keeps from others what they cannot use themselves.

Which proverb sums up The Milkmaid and Her Pail?

Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Daydreaming about the eggs, chicks and new dress her milk will buy, the milkmaid tosses her head and the whole pail goes over.

The wolf in sheep's clothing, often credited to Aesop, also appears as a warning in which part of the Bible?

The Sermon on the Mount. Jesus warns there of false prophets who come in sheep's clothing but are inwardly ravening wolves, and says they will be known by their fruits.

In The Frogs Who Desired a King, what does Zeus first send the frogs as their ruler?

A log. Its splash terrifies the frogs, but they are soon sitting on their motionless king and mocking it, so they demand a livelier ruler and are sent one that eats them.

What does Androcles remove from the lion's paw in the old tale?

A thorn. Years later Androcles is thrown to the beasts in Rome, where the lion sent to kill him turns out to be the same one and greets him like an old friend.

Which playwright's 1912 comedy turned Androcles into a Christian tailor?

George Bernard Shaw. In his Androcles and the Lion the timid tailor and the lion sent to eat him recognise each other, embrace and waltz around the arena to deafening applause.

In The Oak and the Reed, why does the reed survive the storm?

It bends with the wind. The oak trusts its strength, stands stiff against the gale and is torn up by the roots, while the reed bows low and springs back unharmed.

In The Bear and the Travellers, how does the traveller left behind survive?

He pretends to be dead. When his friend climbs down from a tree and asks what the bear whispered, he says it warned him against companions who desert you in danger.

How does the wolf repay the crane that saves it from choking?

Letting it take its head out unharmed. The crane reaches down the wolf's throat for a stuck bone and asks for the promised payment, only to hear that escaping a wolf's jaws alive is reward enough.

How does the stork repay the fox's soup in a shallow bowl?

Serves a meal in a narrow-necked vessel. The stork's long bill reaches the food with ease, while the fox, who had lapped up the soup alone, can only lick the outside of the jar.

In The Two Pots, a clay pot and a pot made of what are swept along a river together?

Metal. The clay pot begs its bronze companion to keep clear, because whichever of them knocks into the other, the clay pot is the one that will break.

In The Ass in the Lion's Skin, what gives the disguised donkey away to the fox?

Its bray. Thrilled at scaring the other animals, the donkey cannot resist a loud hee-haw, and the fox says it too might have been fooled had the ass kept its mouth shut.

Herodotus says the storyteller Aesop lived on the island of Samos as what?

A slave. Herodotus names his master as a Samian called Iadmon, and a later Greek writer has him defending a local politician in public, which suggests he had been freed by then.

According to Plutarch, how did Aesop die?

Thrown from a cliff at Delphi. Sent there as an envoy, he fell out with the townspeople, who accused him of sacrilege and hurled him from the rocks.

Which Lydian king supposedly sent Aesop on the diplomatic mission that ended in his death?

Croesus. In the story the wealthy king sent Aesop abroad with money to share among a city's people, but after a quarrel he refused to hand it out, and it cost him his life.

The highly fictional Aesop Romance says the fabulist was at first unable to do what?

Speak. In the tale he helps a lost priestess, or in another version some hungry priests, and as a reward is granted the use of his tongue.

How is the Honest Woodcutter rewarded for refusing a god's offer of gold and silver axes?

He keeps all three. When others hear of it and lie that a golden axe is theirs, the god gives them nothing and they lose their own axes as well.

Which Spanish painter's portrait of Aesop, painted around 1640, hangs in the Prado paired with a portrait of Menippus?

Diego Velázquez. He showed the storyteller as a poorly dressed man holding a book, one of a pair thought to have been painted for King Philip IV's hunting lodge near Madrid.

Which Greek philosopher spent his final days putting Aesop's fables into verse?

Socrates. In Plato's Phaedo he explains that a recurring dream kept telling him to make music, so in prison awaiting death he tried verse for the first time.

Which saying sums up the fable of Hercules and the Waggoner?

God helps those who help themselves. When the driver only prays to Hercules over his stuck cart, he is told to put his own shoulder to the wheel first.

In Aesop's fable, why does the fox refuse to enter the sick lion's cave?

Tracks lead in but none out. The old lion was only pretending to be ill so that kind visitors would walk into his den, and the fox reads the footprints before following them.

In the usual English telling of The Miller, His Son and the Donkey, what do the pair finally try?

Carrying it themselves. Mocked for walking beside the donkey, for each riding it alone and for riding it together, they sling it from a pole, and in trying to please everyone they end up losing it.

In The Farmer and the Viper, how does the frozen snake repay the man who warms it?

It bites him. With his dying breath the farmer blames himself for taking pity on a scoundrel, the same warning carried by the old phrase about nursing a viper in your bosom.

Who published the first printed English version of Aesop's Fables in 1484?

William Caxton. England's first printer made the translation himself and printed it at Westminster, where he had set up his press in 1476.

Which 12th-century woman poet adapted the fables into verse couplets under the title Ysopet?

Marie de France. She said she was working from an English version of the fables made by King Alfred, and she wrote her own in French verse for a Count William.

In The Wolf and the Lamb, what does the wolf do once the lamb has answered every accusation?

Eats the lamb anyway. Every charge is disproved, including an insult from before the lamb was born, but the wolf will not be talked out of a meal: a tyrant can always find an excuse.

Which philosopher's Some Thoughts Concerning Education recommended Aesop's fables as a child's first reading book?

John Locke. He thought the stories would delight a child yet still give a grown man something to reflect on, and urged an edition with pictures to draw young readers in.

Which French palace's gardens once held a hedge maze with thirty-nine fountains of Aesop's fables?

Versailles. The painted lead animals spouted jets of water to stand for speech, each group beside a plaque of verse, until the maze was destroyed when the gardens were replanted a century later.

In Aesop's fable, what does a fox that lost its tail urge the other foxes to do?

Cut off their tails too. The fox argues that a tail is only a useless burden, until another points out that it would never have said so before losing its own.

Jerry Pinkney's nearly wordless picture book The Lion & the Mouse won which American prize in 2010?

The Caldecott Medal. It goes to the illustrator of the year's most distinguished American picture book, and Pinkney, five times a runner-up, finally won by telling the fable almost entirely in pictures.

Zeno of Elea's famous head-start race paradox pairs the tortoise with which hero?

Achilles. Zeno argued that the swift hero could never overtake the tortoise, because by the time he reaches the spot where it was, it has always crept a little further ahead.

Several of Aesop's fables have parallels in the Jataka tales and the Panchatantra, story collections from which land?

India. Nobody can say which tradition is older, so scholars debate which way the borrowing ran, and Greek and Indian storytellers may each have taken tales from the other.

In Aesop's fable, a donkey that melts its salt load in a river is next loaded with what?

Sponges. The donkey lies down in the ford expecting this load to melt away like the salt, but the sponges soak up water and it struggles home under a far heavier burden.

Which phrase for changing your mind is linked to Aesop's fable of the satyr and the traveller?

To blow hot and cold. The satyr throws out his guest after watching him blow on his fingers to warm them and then on his supper to cool it.

In The Miser and His Gold, what is the miser told to bury in place of his stolen treasure?

A stone. Since he only ever looked at the gold and never spent a coin of it, a passer-by tells him a rock in the hole will serve him just as well.

In The Crab and Its Mother, what does the mother fail to do when her son asks to be shown how?

Walk straight. She scolds her son for scuttling sideways, but when he asks for a demonstration she can only do the same, the fable's case for teaching by example.

In The Dog and the Wolf, why does the hungry wolf refuse the dog's easy life?

The dog is kept on a chain. Tempted by regular meals, the wolf notices the fur worn from the dog's neck, learns a collar did it, and decides to stay hungry and free.

In the usual English telling of The Vain Jackdaw, whose cast-off feathers does he wear?

Peacocks'. They see through the disguise and peck the borrowed plumes off him, and when he slinks home his fellow jackdaws drive him away as well.

In Aesop's fable, a stag admires his antlers in a pool; what do they do when he is chased?

Tangle in the branches. The thin legs he was ashamed of were carrying him clear, and it was the antlers he was so proud of that held him fast until he was caught.

In The Farmer and His Sons, what do the sons gain by digging up the land for buried treasure?

A bumper harvest. Their dying father had told them a treasure lay hidden in the ground, and all their digging turned the soil so well that the crop itself made them rich.

How does the ant repay its rescuer in The Ant and the Dove?

Attacks the man stalking her. The dove had thrown the drowning ant something to float ashore on, and the ant's attack on the hunter's foot spoils his attempt just in time.

In The Fox and the Goat, how does the fox get out of the well?

Climbs up the goat's horns. Having coaxed the thirsty goat down with praise for the water, the fox springs out over him and leaves him stranded at the bottom.

The cartoon shorts Aesop and Son ran as a regular segment of which TV programme?

Rocky and Bullwinkle. In each short Aesop tries to teach his son a lesson with a fable and the boy undercuts the moral with a pun, in the spirit of the show's Fractured Fairy Tales.