Aesop's Fables Trivia
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59 free Aesop's Fables trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Aesop's Fables trivia quiz starts with the stories everyone half-remembers from childhood: why the hare loses, what the crow drops, how the thirsty crow gets a drink, and which idioms ('sour grapes', 'cry wolf', 'bell the cat', 'a dog in the manger') come from which tale. The easy questions are answerable by any 8-year-old who has had the stories read to them; the medium ones test the details people forget, like the fact that the grasshopper was originally a cicada or that the frogs' first king was a log. The harder end is for classicists and pub-quiz specialists: the legendary life and death of Aesop himself, Phaedrus and Babrius, the Perry Index, Caxton's 1484 printing, Marie de France, La Fontaine and Krylov, plus a few fables that are wrongly credited to Aesop altogether. There are also questions on the fables in art and culture, from Velazquez to Disney to the IPA's favourite phonetics passage. Every question was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the individual fables, on Aesop and on the transmission of the collection, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Greek mythology, fairy tales and classic literature quizzes next.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In the fable of the tortoise and the hare, what does the hare do that costs him the race?
Takes a nap
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.
Q 02In the Greek original of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, what does the wolf eat when no one comes?
The whole flock
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.
Q 03Which everyday expression comes from Aesop's fable of a fox who scorns the fruit he cannot reach?
Sour grapes
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'.
Q 04In the original Greek of The Ant and the Grasshopper, which insect begs the ants for food?
A cicada
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.
Q 05How does the mouse repay the lion that spared its life?
Gnaws through the hunters' ropes
When Buddhist monks carried the story to China, the rescued animal became a tiger.
Q 06Why do the owners kill the goose that laid the golden eggs?
They expect a lump of gold inside it
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.
Q 07How does the thirsty crow reach the water low in the pitcher?
Drops in pebbles to raise the level
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.
Q 08In Aesop's fable of the wind and the sun, what must the winner make a passing traveller do?
Remove his cloak
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.
Q 09In The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, why does the country mouse hurry home?
It prefers safety to rich food
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.
Q 10Which Roman poet worked The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse into one of his Satires?
Horace
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.
Q 11In Belling the Cat, the mice's plan collapses because of what?
Nobody will volunteer to attach the bell
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.
Q 12Which phrase comes from a fable where one hunter claims the whole kill after a joint hunt?
The lion's share
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.
Q 13In The Bundle of Sticks, which lesson does a father teach his sons?
Q 21What does Androcles remove from the lion's paw in the old tale?
A thorn
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.
Q 22Which playwright's 1912 comedy turned Androcles into a Christian tailor?
George Bernard Shaw
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.
Q 23In The Oak and the Reed, why does the reed survive the storm?
It bends with the wind
Unity gives strength
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.
Q 14How does the fox get the cheese away from the crow?
Flatters her into singing
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.
Q 15The Crow and the Fox is the second poem in whose 17th-century French verse Fables?
Jean de La Fontaine
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.
Q 16In Aesop's fable, a dog carrying meat drops it after seeing what?
Its own reflection in the water
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.
Q 17In the fable behind the phrase 'dog in the manger', what does the dog do out of spite?
Guards fodder it cannot eat
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.
Q 18Which proverb sums up The Milkmaid and Her Pail?
Don't count your chickens before they hatch
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.
Q 19The 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
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.
Q 20In The Frogs Who Desired a King, what does Zeus first send the frogs as their ruler?
A log
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.
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.
Q 24In The Bear and the Travellers, how does the traveller left behind survive?
He pretends to be dead
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.
Q 25How does the wolf repay the crane that saves it from choking?
Letting it take its head out unharmed
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.
Q 26How does the stork repay the fox's soup in a shallow bowl?
Serves a meal in a narrow-necked vessel
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.
Q 27In The Two Pots, a clay pot and a pot made of what are swept along a river together?
Metal
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.
Q 28In The Ass in the Lion's Skin, what gives the disguised donkey away to the fox?
Its bray
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.
Q 29Herodotus says the storyteller Aesop lived on the island of Samos as what?
A slave
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.
Q 30According to Plutarch, how did Aesop die?
Thrown from a cliff at Delphi
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.