Misadventures in the Land of Fables #61
‘The Ant and the Grasshopper.’ This fable has always bugged me, if you’ll forgive the pun. I don’t know exactly when I first heard it, at school no doubt, but I do know I have always had objections. I probably don’t need to recite the story here, but I will, in its most blunt form, […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #60
An example of creative confusion. Two bird fables from Arthur Golding got conflated in my recollection while I was occupied with other business. Add an original thought of my own—they happen!—and a new fable was conceived, the off-spring of these three parents. In one fable, a ‘puttock’ (a bird of prey) seizes a nightingale and […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #59
There is no character development in the classic Aesopic fable. It is the reader who learns the lesson not the protagonist; the protagonist’s actions are constructed only to produce the lesson and for this purpose it is not necessary, or desirable, to develop what you might call a character. It’s not surprising then that fables […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #58
JACKDAW AND THE SONGBIRDS Weeks elapsed between the first draft of the new fable, ‘Jackdaw and the Songbirds,’ and its completion. I had other commitments. And I also contrived to delete my website. But we’re back. In the interim, however, I had forgotten what had inspired the idea. Fortunately, I had kept some notes. The […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #57
THE COCKEREL AND THE JEWEL It goes like this: A cockerel or rooster pecks for seeds scattered in the farmyard dirt. He finds instead a diamond and has this to say about it: “If your owner had found you, no doubt they’d have felt more delight than I who have no use for you. […]
Misadventures in the Land of Fables #56
Toward the end of Arthur Golding’s ‘A Moral Fabletalk’ there is a curious entry consisting of one long run-on sentence, plus a short explanation of the moral. It describes an ass loaded with meat and drink who must eat thistles and drink from puddles. It goes one to suggests this ass will relate a fable, […]