PAGE Note 215 The Wolf and the Lamb 216 The Fox and the Lion 217 The Dog and his Shadow 217 The Crab and his Mother 217 The Fox and the Grapes 218 The Wolf and the Crane 218 The Ants and the Grasshoppers 219 The Frogs who asked for a King 220 The Donkey in the Lion’s Skin 221 The Mice in Council 221 The Kid and the Wolf 222 The Hawk and the Nightingale 223 The Crow and the Pitcher 223 The Ant and the Dove 224 The Ox and the Frog 224 The Bat and the Weasels 225 The Fox and the Goat 226 The Woman and her Hen 226 The Dog in the Manger 227 The Mouse, the Frog, and the Hawk 227 The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf 228 The Fisherman and the Little Fish 229 The Fox and the Crow 229 The Partridge and the Fowler 230 The Thirsty Pigeon 230 The Three Tradesmen 231 The Hares and the Frogs 231 The Eagle and the Fox 232 INTRODUCTION THE HISTORY OF FABLE MODERN versions of Æsop go back no further than 480 A.D. In their earliest use they are related to the folklore current among all primitive peoples. This folklore had risen in Greece to the rank of literary form a thousand years before the above-mentioned revival in Germany, France, and England. As the creation of Æsop it was the answer to a need for trenchant, but veiled, characterization of men and measures in the dangerous times of the Tyrants. In mirth-provoking utterances, quite apart from personal criticism, things could be intimated with all the force of specific judgments, yet in such veiled form that to resent them was tacit confession that they applied. Later on, when free speech became safer, the grammarians and rhetoricians raised these clever, pithy stories to the literary form they have since maintained.