458 Bird -Lore 



earth story or beast fable, is common to nearly all races in their early his- 

 tory, we may think of it as the A, B, C of literature. 



No one knows what the earliest fable was, but if we turn to Judges g: 7-16 

 we find a very old and famous fable, or parable, about the trees choosing a 

 king, which gives a very clear idea of this kind of story. An interesting point 

 about the fable of the trees is that it was told, not for the sake of the story, 

 but to suggest something which the story-teller, Jotham, did not dare to say 

 outright for fear of offending the jealous law-breakers about him. This story, 

 then, really has a moral, and we shall find that all ages and generations of men 

 have made much use of nature in writing or telling fables with a similar purpose. 



Not only trees, but animals, birds, insects, and even inanimate things, figure 

 as human beings in fables. Since everyone knows the sly fox, the cruel, crafty 

 wolf, the gentle dove, the sagacious crow, the slow tortoise, the thrifty, indus- 

 trious ant, and many of their natural associates, it is easy for a story-teller to 

 use these creatures to point a moral, without making enemies of those whom he 

 wishes to instruct and to criticise. 



One of the most famous writers of fables was ^Esop, a man who probably 

 rose from the condition of a slave, to freedom and a position of considerable 

 influence. He may have lived between five or six hundred or more years 

 before Christ, but where he lived is not certain, or just how or why he suffered 

 a violent death. We know him best by his fables; and, although he may never 

 have written these down himself, they were told and retold and put into book- 

 form by others, so that, for all time to come, every boy and girl may read his 

 clever stories. 



He was evidently familiar with all the common animals, birds, and insects 

 of his neighborhood, for we find a long list of them in the index to his fables. 



Of all the stories about intelligent Crows, none is better than ^sop's fable 

 of 'The Crow and the Pitcher.' In the fable of 'The Fox and the Crow,' Ji^sop 

 shows that sly flattery may bring the most intelligent to grief. An even keener 

 rebuke to those who are brilliant but over-ambitious is given the guise of a 

 fable about 'The Eagle and the Crow.' 



Perhaps more widely-known, and possibly as old or older than ^Esop's 

 Fables, is a collection of moral stories which had their origin in India, and are 

 today known as Pilpay's Fables. Pilpay is not the name of any particular 

 man, but a corru])tion of an Arabic word bid-bah, meaning 'court-scholar, or 

 master of sciences,' a title apphed to the chief pandit of an Indian prince. You 

 may sometimes find this title spelled Bidpai, and, since the fables attributed 

 to Pilpay or Bidpai have been translated into so many different languages and 

 have influenced so many later writers and readers, you would do well to spend a 

 half-hour reading the history of these stories, which some Brahman philosopher 

 probably collected from still older stories based upon the ancient folk-lore of 

 the common j^eople, and retold for the benefit of a wicked king whom he 

 wished to reform. 



