In its strict sense a fable is a short story or folk tale embodying a moral, which may be expressed explicitly at the end as a maxim. "Fable" comes from Latin fabula and shares a root with faber, "maker, artificer." Thus, though a fable may be conversational in tone, the understanding from the outset is that it is an invention, a created fiction. A fable may be set in verse, though it is usually prose. In its pejorative sense, a fable is a deliberately invented or falsified account. This article is in need of attention. ... Folklore is the ethnographic concept of the tales, legends, or superstitions current among a particular ethnic population, a part of the oral history of a particular culture. ... Morality is a complex of principles based on cultural, religious, and philosophical concepts and beliefs, by which an individual determines whether his or her actions are right or wrong. ... This article needs cleanup. ...

A fable often, but not necessarily, makes metaphorical use of an animal as its central character. Medieval French fabliaux might feature Reynard, the fox, a trickster figure, and offer a subtext that was mildly subversive of the feudal order of society. A familiar theme in Slavic fables is an encounter between a wily peasant and the Devil. In language, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope where a comparison is made between two seemingly unrelated subjects. ... Phyla Porifera (sponges) Ctenophora (comb jellies) Cnidaria Placozoa Bilateria  Acoelomorpha  Orthonectida  Rhombozoa  Myxozoa  Superphylum Deuterostomia     Chordata (vertebrates, etc. ... Old French is a term sometimes used to refer to the langue doïl, the continuum of varieties of Romance language spoken in territories corresponding roughly to the northern half of modern France and parts of Belgium and Switzerland during the period roughly from 1000 to 1300 A.D... The fabliau (plural fabliaux) is a comic, usually anonymous tale written by jongleurs in northeast France circa the 13th Century. ... Reynard the Fox, also known as Renard, Renart, Reinard, Reinecke, Reinhardus, and by many other spelling variations, is a trickster figure whose tale is told in a number of anthropomorphic fables from medieval Europe. ... Red Fox The foxes comprise 23 species of omnivorous canids, found worldwide. ... In the study of mythology, folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit or human hero who breaks the rules of the gods or nature, sometimes maliciously (for example, Loki) but usually with ultimately positive effects. ... Feudalism comes from the Late Latin word feudum, itself borrowed from a Germanic root *fehu, a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held under certain obligations by feodati. ... The Devil is the name given to a supernatural entity who, in most Western religions, is the central embodiment of evil. ...

In some usage "fable" has been extended to include stories with mythical or legendary elements. The word fabulous strictly means "pertaining to fables", although in recent decades its metaphorical meanings have been taken to be literal meanings. An author of fables is called a fabulist. For the computer game, see Myth (computer game). ... A legend (Latin, legenda, things to be read) is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. ...

Notable fabulists

• Aesop
• Phaedrus
• Hyginus, author of Fabulae
• Berechiah ha-Nakdan (1200s Jewish author, Berechiah the Punctuator)
• Marie de France
• Biernat of Lublin (Polish, 1465? – after 1529).
• Jean de La Fontaine
• Ignacy Krasicki (Polish, 1735 – 1801).
• Ivan Krylov
• Uncle Remus

Aesop, as depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle. ... Phaedrus, ¹ (15 B.C. – AD 50), Roman fabulist, was by birth a Macedonian and lived in the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius and Claudius. ... Hyginus can refer to: Gaius Julius Hyginus (c. ... Berechiah ha-Nakdan, (1200s CE) was a Jewish exegete, ethical writer, grammarian, and translator; his name means Berechiah the Puntuator (or grammarian), indicating his possible profession. ... Marie de France was a poet, in France and England during the late 12th century. ... Biernat of Lublin (Polish: Biernat z Lublina, 1465? – after 1529) was a Polish poet, fabulist and physician. ... Events July 13 - Battle of Montlhéry - Troops of King Louis XI of France fight inconclusively against an army of the great nobles organized as the League of the Public Weal. ... Events April 22 - Treaty of Saragossa divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal, stipulating that the dividing line should lie 297. ... Jean de La Fontaine (c. ... Ignacy Krasicki Ignacy Krasicki (February 3, 1735 - March 14, 1801) was a Polish prince of the Roman Catholic Church, social critic, a leading writer and the outstanding poet of the Polish Enlightenment, hailed by contemporaries as the Prince of Poets. ... Events 16 April - The London premiere of Alcina by George Frideric Handel, his first the first Italian opera for the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. ... 1801 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (Иван Андреевич Крылов in Russian) (February 13, 1769 - November 21, 1844) was a famous Russian fabulist. ... Uncle Remus was the title and fictional narrator of a collection of stories by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form from 1881; seven Uncle Remus books were published. ...

Notable fables

• Stone Soup
• The Little Engine that Could
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull
• Watership Down
• The Lion King
• Emperor's New Clothes (fable)
• Fables and Parables by Ignacy Krasicki

The fable of the stone soup is about co-operation amid scarcity. ... The Little Engine that Could, also known as The Pony Engine, is a moralistic childrens story that appeared in the United States of America. ... Jonathan Livingston Seagull was first published in 1970 and is the work of Richard Bach. ... Watership Down For the hill named Watership Down, see Watership Down, Hampshire. ... The Lion King is the 32nd film in the Disney animated feature canon, and it also was the highest-grossing traditionally animated feature film ever released in the United States. ... The Emperors New Clothes is a short story written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837. ... Fables and Parables (Bajki i przypowieści, 1779) by Ignacy Krasicki is an enduring classic of Polish literature. ... Ignacy Krasicki Ignacy Krasicki (February 3, 1735 - March 14, 1801) was a Polish prince of the Roman Catholic Church, social critic, a leading writer and the outstanding poet of the Polish Enlightenment, hailed by contemporaries as the Prince of Poets. ...

See also

• Allegory
• Apologue
• Fairy tale
• Ghost story
• Parable

An allegory (from Greek αλλος, allos, other, and αγορευειν, agoreuein, to speak in public) is a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than and in addition to the literal. ... So similar to a parable, that it is usually considered a synonym, the rhetoricians apologue is a brief fiction with pointed or exaggerated details, illustrating a moral truth without explicitly stating it. ... A fairy tale is a story, either told to children or as if told to children, concerning the adventures of mythical characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants, and others. ... A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or the belief of some character(s) in them. ... An ill digested lesson The Governess. ...

External links

• The Dragon-Tyrant