Who Was Aesop?

I am sure you have all heard of Aesop's Fables!
So who was Aesop?

Aesop was a slave and a story teller that lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE.
Although he is credited with the fables, they have been added to over the years and are still being added to, to this day.

Originally they were not written down but rather told from memory.
Only later did they start to be written down in Latin and Greek.

With the advent of the printing press Aesop's Fables were some of the first stories printed.

Initially the fables were addressed to adults and covered religious, social and political themes, but they were also used as ethical guides.

... like those who dine well off the plainest dishes, he made use of humble incidents to teach great truths, and after serving up a story he adds to it the advice to do a thing or not to do it. Then, too, he was really more attached to truth than the poets are; for the latter do violence to their own stories in order to make them probable; but he by announcing a story which everyone knows not to be true, told the truth by the very fact that he did not claim to be relating real events.
— Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Book V:14

They have spread all over the world and are now printed in almost every language.

While most are credited to Aesop there are many fables that are not his but credit has been given to him.

One such story is called "An Ass Eating Thistles"

The Asse which dainty meates doth beare
And feedes on thistles all the yeare
Is like the wretch that hourds up gold
And yet for want doth suffer cold.

Fables were a form of learning about life and the lessons of life.

Who of you remembers, "The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs."

A story of a farmer and his wife that had a goose that would lay one golden egg everyday.
They thought there must be a lump of gold inside the hen so they killed it and when they opened it, it was just the same as any other hen.

The moral of the story is this: "The foolish pair, thus hoping to become rich all at once, deprived themselves of the gain of which they were assured day by day."

I guess one could say, "A Steem in hand is worth two in the block!"

To learn more about Aesop Click Here

To Read some Fables Click Here

Hope you liked this story.