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In the documentary ‘Bosch: The Garden of Dreams,’ Chinese artist Cai Quo Quian picks out a relatively innocuous detail in the surreal, polyamorous super-abundance of Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights.’ An image of animals drinking from a river or lake. He connects it with his own work, specifically the installation entitled ‘Heritage’ in which all the animals of the grasslands congregate around a waterhole, their heads bent over the water to drink.

These two scenes prompted me to think about the proximity of animals at a waterhole, the social friction this proximity might create and the idea of the development of community with its rules and manners. However, a closer look at the Quo Quian make me realise the flaw in this idea of community among animals. Here we found predators drinking alongside their prey, tigers and cheetahs just yards from zebra and antelope. Something was wrong. Surely this could not happen?

Both the Bosch and the Quo Quian were fantasies: Quo Quian presents a dream of peace and harmony, while the Bosch detail features unicorns and appears in the first panel of the triptych, likely a depiction of Eden. This is not always a dealbreaker for a genre (fable) in which animals routinely talk to and sometimes ally with their natural antagonists. But I was curious about why I had initially assumed this peaceful congregation actually occurred in the real world?

THE ATTRACTIONS OF A REASSURING IDEA

Somewhere along the line I had heard that animals would not attack each other at the waterhole and I believed it. Or accepted it. Where had I got this idea from? Turns out the source was probably Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book.’ Kipling imagines a truce at the waterhole and portrayed it as a law of the jungle: the mancub Mowgli is told that the animals suspend hostilities at the waterhole so that they might each tend to their thirst. It’s an attractive, optimistic idea: a vision of a rules-based order and a very English fantasy of respect and fair play, like a gentleman’s agreement.

Attractive, but not the way it goes down in real life.

I don’t know the frequency of attacks at the water’s edge, as animals go to drink, but we do know that predators migrate with the other animals to the waterholes. They need water, of course, as much as the next creature, but with so many animals in one place, the waterhole represents an opportunity for them. And it would not be the opportunity to adopt a diet of leaves or grasses.

COMPLACENCY CAN KILL

Slightly embarrassed by my credulity, I started to imagine a story in which an animal was, like me, persuaded of this truce. It would be a fable warning of the danger of the favouring an attractive theory over personal experience, of recourse to reason before instinct. And as a warning, it doesn’t turn out well.

The ostrich’s reassurance is, if you like, a riposte to ‘the Boy Who Cried Wolf.’ The ostrich minimizes a threat that should in fact be taken seriously. Complacency can kill.

The antelope again seemed like an appropriately worried protagonist. As for the complacent, reassuring promoter of theory, well, I drew upon another myth, that of the ostrich who supposedly puts their head in the ground in denial of unpleasant reality. (This isn’t true either: it was a misapprehension based on their practice of turning the eggs which they lay in shallow holes in the ground.)

You can read the new fable here: ‘The Truce at the Waterhole‘

Remember there are sharing buttons at the bottom of each fable. Please share. And you can comment on this blog below.

Can something be both superficial and deep-rooted? You’d think it would be a contradiction, but if you consider roots horizontally extended over decades and centuries,  the space opens for the two concepts to co-exist. A superficially attractive idea, an assumption based on appearances, an error, these can persist and the longer they do the more deep-rooted they become.

The stereotyping on which fables depend is superficial. It abstracts one particular quality of a species—perhaps the most obvious as seen from our point of view. The animal as character comes to represent an idea and not itself. It’s a kind of shorthand without which a fable could not be as concise and immediately intelligible form that it is. As George Fyler Townsend writes in the introduction to his 1867 collection of Aesop:

“The Fox should be always cunning, the Hare timid, the Lion bold, the Wolf cruel, the Bull strong, the Horse proud, and the Ass patient.”

But the writer cannot invent these stereotypes: they work only if it is already understood, deep-rooted, as well as widespread.

FLIP AND REVERSE

On the other hand, one of the easiest ways of reworking a fable is to confound the stereotypes. The way folk tales have been gender switched in recent years. Flip them and see where that takes you; ask what things look like upside down. This can produce new material, but it is not quite as clever as it seems. Flips and switches tend to comment more on the stereotypes themselves. In so doing, they miss the point, because the heart of the fable is the moral not the symbolic system on which it is built.

A fable is always about us, not the animals.*

A FABLE WITHOUT STEREOTYPES

But what happens when those stereotypes have not been established? Can a fable take place in an unfamiliar setting, with a new set of characters, when it cannot draw on that well of meaning? Can it still work?

I think so.

The characters are defined by their actions or their attitudes and as long as the narrative remains concise and to the point there will not be time for those qualities to be both established and disavowed. The problem arises when our prior knowledge of that animal’s behaviour creates resistance. If the character’s behaviour conflicts with our expectations, we may consider that fact itself as significant and this may interfere with our understanding of the fable’s moral.

This was one of the challenges in writing ‘The Hippos and the Antelope,’ a fable set around a waterhole. The animals did not come equipped. I had to select them for the roles and it seemed to me it would help if I stereotyped them based on my limited and superficial knowledge. The hippos were a straightforward choice becauset they had to be semi-aquatic creatures, but also stubborn. A superficial association of bulky with obstinacy. Of the range of grassland animals, antelope struck me as most plausible as a group of petty complainants, while the Giraffe, with its long-neck, was ideally proportioned for the role of someone who makes an intervention from a position of assumed superiority.

You can read the new fable here: ‘The Hippos at the Waterhole.’

*but persistent negative stereotypes can be harmful, they prepare the ground for mistreatment and justify murder: wolves, for example, get a hard time because of an exaggerated estimation of their threat

Images from RawPixel:
An Eagle Perched on a Rock; Lion, Fox, Two Hounds and a Rooster (possibly for “Aesop’s Fables”) Original public domain image from Yale Center for British Art; Hippopotamus (Hippopotame Amphibie) illustrated by Charles Dessalines D’ Orbigny (1806-1876). Digitally enhanced from our own 1892 edition of Dictionnaire Universel D’histoire Naturelle.

To eat a tortoise you must first break its protective shell. Chances are, you hadn’t given this particular challenge much thought up to now, but it seems to have been the prompt for two Aesopic fables, two which over the years have undergone a number of transformations.

The key action, as it impacts the victim, is this: a tortoise is seized by an eagle, the eagle drops the tortoise and breaks its shell, the tortoise is eaten.

In one version, ‘The Tortoise and the Eagle,’ [Perry 230], it becomes a cautionary tale of what happens if you aspire to things beyond your scope. In the other, ‘The Tortoise and the Birds‘ [Perr 290], a crow advises the eagle to drop the tortoise and we witness an example of what can be achieved through collaboration, or in some versions, of how cunning gains the spoils.

In both, my sympathies tend toward the victim, the tortoise. Who could not pity the poor creature as it plummets to its death? Or look on with horror as the two birds have themselves “a hearty meal?” The version published by Joseph Jacobs features expressive illustrations which reveal an ambivalence about the fate of the foolish victim:

And yet, though the tortoise has my sympathies, it is the eagle who intrigues me.

The Eagle has Fallen

It agrees to transport the tortoise from one place to another, moonlighting from its natural role as predator. This is a refreshing change and though it is promised a reward for the gig, you feel it is has made a rare connection with a fellow creature. Then the crow comes along, suggests it drop the tortoise on the rocks, because it will make a good meal. And the eagle does it. It’s a stunning betrayal and not the kind of taxi service you would hope for. No wonder the fable tunes out any protests from the victim.

Shouldn’t the eagle resist the temptation offered by the crow? Shoudn’t it keep its word? And if it should do that, but fails, isn’t this where conscience enters the world? Conscience and regret. Shame at what it has done to the victim and to its own sense of honour. Who could eat with relish in such circumstances?

In the land of fable, animals must be emblematic of certain qualities, in order for the meaning to be readily comprehensible. The cunning fox, for example. It seems to me the eagle would be understood as one of the noble creatures. Majestic. Deadly. But with great power come great responsibility. And thus, for me, this is a fable of a fall from grace.

You can read my version here: ‘The Eagle and the Crow‘

And if you are enjoying these adventures in the Land of Fables, remember, you can buy me a coffee to keep me fuelled up on the journey.

~~~

In late 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, an elementary school in rural California received warning of an imminent nuclear attack. As the yellow light flashed on their control panel, the administration tried to establish whether this was a fault or a test. Unable to get confirmation, they had to go through with procedure: the children were assembled in the playground and then escorted home on foot by the designated teachers.

Frank and Eleanor Perry’s 1963 film ‘Ladybug Ladybug’ uses this incident to examine what happens when kids are forced to confront the idea of death, not only their own, but that of their friends and families, their entire world. It’s a challenging concept even when you come face to face with the reality, but when the threat is abstract, when nothing or no one had died and there is no visible sign of danger, it’s something hard to get your head around. The adults know what might be coming, but even they are unsure, unwilling to believe, bewildered.

After the alarm sequence, the film consists of one simple action, the journey home. The kids are led along quiet country lanes, cross sunlit fields. It would be idyllic if not for the growing awareness of crisis. Panic on a long fuse. Then they arrive one by one at empty houses or encounter disbelieving and inconvenienced parents and they have to take matters into their own hands. It could be a bad dream. And the ending has the temperature of a child about to wake from a feverish nightmare.

‘Little Fugitive’ is a vérité style independent feature feature film shot in New York and Coney Island in the early fifties. I wasn’t aware of it until recently, but I probably should have been. It won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was a key influence on the French New Wave and surely too on the Dardenne brothers. “Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn’t been for the young Morris Engel…with his fine ‘Little Fugitive.’” <Francois Truffaut>

The premise caught my attention: a seven year-old boy is tricked into believing he has killed his elder brother and flees to Coney Island with the money his mother left for groceries. This could be the back story for one of my ‘tales of wonder and despair,’ I thought. And, in fact, I have a note somewhere about the boy as a fugitive from a crime he didn’t commit. It’s a situation that provokes an intriguing mix of adventure and guilt, while also offering a clear resolution.

But the set-up proves the least effective part of the film. It feels staged, the child actors self-conscious, performing to camera. I was bracing myself for disappointment, but once we reach Coney Island, the film burst into life, spontaneous and incidental. We watch the boy roam the amusement park and beach in a series of short scenes and passing encounters captured by a concealed camera strapped to the the director/cameraman’s body.

Although the story does not seem to progress through this action, this is where the film is most compelling because, released from parental oversight, the boy starts to express himself. Inadvertently. Innocently. By doing whatever he feels like. We already know he dreams of being a cowboy. He carries a toy gun in a holster and longs to ride horses on the range. When he arrives at the amusement park he makes straight for the carousel. He treats his mount like a real horse, stroking its mane, tapping its rump with the end of the rein. We see him go round and round, each time reaching out to catch a ring—a feature I’d never heard of, and which seems derived from the rodeo, requiring riders to lean from the horse and grab a small ring from a staging post.

The boy fails this challenge, but seeks to prove himself elsewhere, aspiring to the baseball skills of his elder brother and friends. He visits the tin can alley, repeatedly, and later struggles manfully to lift the bat against an automated pitching machine. He eats, randomly and with relish, hot dogs and watermelon and coke and ice-cream, though he rolls his candy floss into a ball to practice his aim. In between, he is left to wander among the crowd, bored and lonely.

It is only when he has exhausted his cash that he discovers the attraction he most covets: a pony ride. Fortunately, among the crowds on the beach, he meets a boy collecting bottle returns and he soon dedicates himself to raising funds for ride after ride after ride, so many rides the owner begins to wonder about the boy’s parents. When he raises the subject, the boy runs away.

The narrative picks up again, a gentle tale of a boy obtaining the solicitude of his elder brother, but these revelatory scenes of a boy following his inclinations remain the heart of the film. Innocent, direct, unencumbered by attitude.

And the vérité footage of 1950s Coney Island is sensational.

‘The Astrologer who Fell into a Well’ is a mean-spirited anecdote that demonstrates a common sense truth: you need to look where you are going, otherwise you may trip and fall. It goes like this:

An astrologer went walking at night to study the stars. He fell down a deep well. A passer-by answered his calls for help and, learning what had happened, told him he would do better looking at the ground before him than the sky above his head.

Apparently the anecdote’s protagonist was pre-Socratic philosopher Thales. It was widely-circulated  in Ancient Greece and first cited by Plato. Later, during the Enlightenment period, the Thales character became an astrologer and the fable was used as a cheap shot to mock the pseudo-scientific occupation.

Gags, Gotchas, and Generosity

I have to confess the slapstick comedy amuses me. It’s a classic gag, straight out of the silent era. Keaton/Lloyd/Chaplin have all done versions of it. It works best in long-shot where the viewer sees the danger and also that the distracted character does not—the comedian has some fun with this anticipation.

Aesop’s fable reduces the gag to a simple gotcha, a told-you-so with the observer character pushing their way between the reader and action. In some versions, the observer doesn’t even bother to help and I end up having (even) more sympathy for astrologer—at least they have a passion. If I were staging the incident, I’d be tempted to have the observer also fall down a hole, distracted by a barely-warranted sense of superiority.

Like most fables, the characters are not fleshed out, the drama not fully inhabited. It seems plausible that the rescuer would offer advice on looking where you are going, plausible if irritating, but I somehow doubt the astrologer would stand there and explain what had happened. I imagine he would merely thank his rescuer and shuffle off, probably resuming his observations, without having learned the lesson. This gave me an idea: what if his studies were so captivating that he actually refuses the offer of help and instead complains that his rescuers are blocking his view of the stars. As the rescuer(s) stand there baffled, the astrologer continues his calculations in order to determine when he is destined to escape.

As I write, this picture of stupidity still makes me chuckle.

And the message? Well, it seems to be something to do with the way we fit events around our beliefs and not the other way around. The astrologer’s faith in his ‘science’ is so complete that, in all sincerity, he ignores the fact that his rescue was actually about to take place, whether the stars and the planets aligned or not. He would rather have the confirmation than the results. This is a more generous and subtle rendering of the incident which, at the same time, still argues the man is an idiot.

Up-date: I wrote this version too: ‘The Stargazer‘

The Dreamer

Despites its inadequacies, the fable hooked me because it has something to say about dreamers. And that means me. It’s easy to see how the figure of the scientist lost in thought could be replaced by the daydreamer lost in fantasies, with both inclined to neglect life’s practicalities. (I’m not the only one to see that association. It must be an influence on ‘The Story of Johnny-Head-In-Air’ from Heinrich Hoffmann’s ‘Shockheaded Peter,’ a collection of amusing, but mean-spirited, cautionary tales.)

In fact, it was when I saw an illustration entitled the dreamer that I was prompted to revisit Aesop’s fable.

I first began to consider something original, inspired by that seductive image of neglect, both beautiful and disturbing, a man re-wilding himself, but I couldn’t (yet) settle on a narrative that would make this work. In the meantime, I decided to return to Aesop’s fable, introducing a dreamer into the action. They would replace the redundant observer character, or rather the astrologer, while also giving the astrologer the observer role, if you see what I mean. The dreamer consults the astrologer to discover what the future holds. After the astrologer predicts great things, they leave his premises head brimming with visions of a bright future, and they neglect to look where they are going. Down the hole they go! As I worked my way into the situation I realised the shock of the fall would make this person angry and they would likely blame someone else, the astrologer for example, pointing to his failure to predict the accident.

And there you have the bones of another new version of the fable, which you can find fully-dressed here: ‘The Astrologer and the Young Prince‘

Fables are used to make a point. A moral demonstrated by a short narrative. But the narrative does not prove the point but merely provides an illustration of it, an example more easily remembered, one that may lend some substance and colour to our arguments. The art of rhetoric. The Panchatantra is full of dialogues that branch into other stories as the characters call on narrative to advise and persuade.

Fables don’t represent a coherent body of ethical thought. They are discrete instances that can contradict each other. They can for example recommend telling lies and then also condemn it. They can be optimistic or cynical. Indeed, the same scenario may be developed to produce an opposing meaning.

THE PANTHER AND THE VILLAGERS

I was reminded of this recently when reading the tale of the panther who fell into a ditch [Perry 494]. Here’s a version based on a quick translation of the latin:

A panther fell into a ditch. When the villagers came upon her, she implored them not to hurt him, as she had never harmed any of their own. Some villagers took no notice of her pleas and pelted her with stones until she crawled wounded and bloodied into corner. Other villagers who had seen this cruelty came to her aid, brought her food, and kept her from further harm. One night, having recovered her strength, the panther managed to escape. She marauded through the village, something she had never done before, attacking the peasants who had treated her cruelly and leaving those who had been kind. “I know those to whom I am beholden, just as I know those by whom I have been beaten and struck and wounded,” she declared.

A simple tale of hostility punished and kindness spared. Karma, we’d probably call it, or the reassuring operations of a moral universe. Some authors used as an exhortation not to make enemies. Don’t kick someone when they’re down.

It brings to those heart-warming video clips of ordinary people working to save animals trapped in nets, ditches, fences, and would likely have been authored by someone for whom that behaviour felt more natural.

FROM OPTIMISM TO CYNICISM

But you might equally imagine a more cynical version in which the panther failed to discriminate between the villagers, murdering the cruel and the kind alike, its rage or its savage nature rendering it uninterested in such moral niceties. You might further argue that those who gave it succour enabled it to recover and escape, and were therefore culpable in the atrocity.

Crucial to the strength of the more optimistic original are the entreaties of the panther at the beginning. These draw attention to the lack of previous hostility between her and the villagers. The brutes make an enemy of the panther, while in the cynical retelling the author would have to emphasise the savagery of the beast, snarling back at them in its trap.

The moral of this version points to the implacable threat the panther represented and the naivety of those who thought it could be disarmed with kindness. The message of a political ‘realist,’ similar to that of ‘The Man who Warmed a Snake’ [Perry 176]. Not a message that appeals to me, but it might have applications in some encounters with criminals or between warring parties.

The line between kindness and naivety is sometimes a sweet, soft-focus blur, but only a fool makes unnecessary enemies.

‘The Rule of the Lion’ or ‘The Monkey and the Lion’s Breath’ is a little-known fable attributed to Aesop. A critique of power and the folly of our attempts to pander to it. It goes something like this:

The lion makes himself king of the beasts but seeks to be known as fair and just. So he gives up eating meat and adopts the more modest, vegetarian diet of his subjects. He can’t keep it up, however. Ashamed, he invents a stratagem to justify the violence required to kill his victims. He takes them aside and asks them if his breath smells, whatever they answer, he kills and eats them (if he’s hungry). A monkey gives particularly beautiful reply which makes him feel guilty about what he’s about to do. He gets over this by pretending to be sick and when the physicians advise him to stick to a light diet, he claims monkey meat is suitable, being nice and lean, and has it killed immediately.

Two things struck me about this.

Answering the Lion’s question is a matter of etiquette. You’d expect people to use the utmost discretion with the king. You imagine they will change that calculation once it becomes known that politeness can be fatal. But then candour has the same results. This is almost amusing. Ministers or courtiers boxed in. Silver-tongued flattery seems to offer a way out, but proves only a reprieve from the same consequences.

What is the message? ’Power is unanswerable.’ ‘Don’t get too close to a tyrant.’ Something like that, though its applications will be relatively limited these days. The recourse against abusive bosses is more robust. And who really cares about those who cosy up to actual tyrants?

Then, the Lion’s scruples are surprising. If any quality is characteristic of the tyrant it is a lack of shame. And ancient origins of the fable are betrayed by the suggestion death could be considered an proportionate consequence for an answer to such a trivial question. (I mean, it can be read metaphorically, but the guy’s entourage is going to empty out pretty fast.)

So why did it hook me?

Well, I started to think about why the Lion might have felt constrained to give up his meat eating. Where did that come from? Or when did it arise? The decision, it seemed to me, precedes his ascent to the throne. It wasn’t a signal to himself but to others, the rest of the animals, his subjects, or his electorate, as my version has it. He earns the right to his position by appearing fair and just. Only later would the mask be discarded.

Then, in the writing, having started with the campaign, I found I could not reach the period in which the fable takes place, the regime. It began to feel anti-climactic. I was more interested in the deception used to achieve power, the subversion of the democratic process. The more I thought more about the Lion, the more I heard him assert his entitlement, as rightful bearer of the Crown, as  presumed king of beasts. His disdain for democracy came through. Would he even take part?

Thus the fable became a confrontation between raw monarchism and nascent democracy.

You can read it here: ‘The Lion’s Breath‘

Late last year, I wrote a wholesome, inspirational fable. I was reluctant to promote it though, because the postivity placed it outside my comfort zone. As an original, there was no antecedent to be over-written or challenged. No reference. Nor was there any inherent aggression, no punishment or cruelty. It was whimsical. It was hard for me to assess the work. I liked it, but I couldn’t decide if it was any good or not.

If you want to read it before I discuss what I think it means, you can find it here:

‘The Blackbird and its Wings’

The story was inspired by an illustration of a bird wearing artificial wings. I don’t remember where I saw the image—I didn’t make a note (!)—but the idea, the curious superfluity of it, provoked my imagination: what was going on there? what kind of madness was this? As I wrote, I realised it may not be madness but rather desperation. The bird needed the extra pair, perhaps like an injured person needs crutches.

I also began to see it as a potential Jackdaw story. The young blackbird’s willfulness, its determination to survive is chacteristic of Jackdaw, as too is her ingenuity. Think of Jackdaw’s efforts to beat the harshness of winter by posing as a pigeon, or his creative approach to winning the title of most beautiful bird.

In both cases, there is subterfuge and transformation. The difference here is the protagonist does not provoke resentment or suffer punishment for transgression. She triumphs over her obstacles. Like Jackdaw’s fabulous stolen plumage, her fake wings are effective. They work. They serve to get her—literally—off the ground, after which she proves able to continue on her own.

What does it mean?

What does it mean? For me, there are two elements. One considers the role of confidence. The fledgeling wants to become something, let’s call it an adult. She believes she is ready and she is almost right. When she fails, her confidence takes a hit and worse, she has put herself in great danger. But she survives and rebuilds that confidence through the construction of artificial wings. In order to prove she is strong enough to fly, she resorts to something that is not her, and it works.

The fable speaks to the value of taking action, specifically of using an aid, a therapy, a fiction (an uplifting fable perhaps): whatever keeps you moving forward. ‘Don’t be afraid to seek help,’ it argues. ‘Don’t be ashamed.’

It also commends tenacity, risk-taking, and aspiration. And rewards them with a happy ending. This may be where I get uncomfortable. I don’t believe things will work out and regard stories in which they do as somehow fake, contrived, fabricated, like a pair of artificial wings.

Now you’ve read it, what do you think?

this wasn’t the image, but it’s the only one I’ve been able to find and I thought it would be nice to promote the artist, Sheila Norgate (website)