Misadventures in the Land of Fables #52
Fables are full of implausible alliances between animals. One of the most incongruous is the friendship that develops between the monkey and the crocodile in the tale that opens Book IV of the Panchatantra. The incongruity is not played for laughs, unlike the tortoise who persuades two geese to carry him away. No, these two […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #51
I first came across ‘How the Tiger Got its Stripes’ in Walton Ford’s Pancha Tantra. The story was recounted without a title (in English) so I didn’t know it was a ‘Just So’ story, an etiological narrative, and as Ford’s book is a collection of paintings inspired by fables, I was expecting a more didactic […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #50
THE SNAKE AND THE SWALLOW-TAILED KITE ~~~ This fable was inspired by the painting by French-American ornithologist John James Audubon. It started with a simple question. The kite has caught a snake: what was the snake doing when it was caught? The same as the kite, it was pursuing its next meal, a lizard, let’s […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #49
‘THE MAN BITTEN BY A DOG’ This Aesop fable (Perry 69) seemed relevant to social media and all the hot takes and concern trolling regarding recent political events. I thought I’d post the Townsend version unaltered, on Bluesky, but as I wrote some changes suggested themselves to me. For those of you who don’t have […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #48
Writing is a journey of discovery, even re-writing or re-imagining or whatever it is I am doing in these misadventures, but the discovery is accidental and unpredictable. It only happens when things do not work out as planned. If your route proves unnavigable, if you take the wrong path, and you keep going, you may […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #47
Hares are noted for their speed and for their timidity. Or, to put the two characteristics together: when they are startled from their hiding places, they are running for their lives, and that’s when we see them. I’ve seen plenty in my time, disturbing them as I womp through the middle of some bramble-encrusted woodland. […]