Did you know that fables were not originally created for the enjoyment of children, but for the entertainment and edification of adults? Passed from mouth to mouth, often over campfires or kitchen tables, these oral folklore tales have remained popular for centuries. Your textbook defines the fable as “a brief, often humorous narrative told to illustrate a moral. The characters in fables are traditionally animals whose personality traits symbolize human traits”(26). You’ll notice, however, that not all of the characters in the fables below fit this definition, and they also can include inanimate objects, people, and supernatural beings (pg. 6). Enjoy the following three international fables from your textbook as you take notice their distinctive features and lessons. A good resource for looking up other versions of Aesop’s Fables can be found at the International Children’s Digital Library. It’s free, and it has all kinds of wonderful, full-text books from around the world and in different languages, too, so it is not only a good reference for you but also for your families! The Three Fables The old Sufi Legend, “Death Has an Appointment of Samarra,” a Muslim tale that takes place near Baghdad, shares common themes with “Godfather Death,” which you are also reading in Unit 1. “The North Wind and the Sun” (pp. 7-8) is credited to Aesop. This fable was probably initially told to a mixed audience of mostly adults as the natural elements take on human characteristics to create a tale with a sense of human response. If you enjoy reading this old fable, you might like to read Calvino’s contemporary versions, Cosmicomics (1965) and t zero (1965), which are filled with planets, physical forces, and mathematical ideas; preview one of his books here. Bidpai’s “The Tortoise and the Geese” (pp. 8-9) and his other Sanskrit tales are as popular in the East (from Turkey and Iran to Indonesia and India) as Aesop’s are in the West, and they feature a practical and didactic moral code that often serves to instruct people about the business of surviving in a dangerous world. Read a few more of these fables in Bidpai’s Panchatantra Tales (a collection of beast fables from India), which uses animal tales to instruct three princes about wise conduct in court life and royal politics. Assignment Following writing instructions from Unit 1 (and using academic language), prepare one document in Word, with one “robust” paragraph per fable, identifying each fable and addressing the following points: Identify the titles of the fables and the countries or cultures from which they arose. Summarize each tale in your own words. Identify a moral, with an example, from each fable (be sure that it includes the consequence of the action). If a moral is already included, devise a new one of your own that still captures the lesson in it. Describe why you think each of these selections is categorized as a fable (e.g., include and describe relevant features of these particular fables). When you have finished writing your responses to this assignment (and have proof-read it for completeness, errors, and format), upload your Word document through this assignment link.
