SOURCE: Georgios A. Megas, "Some Oral Greek Parallels to Aesop's Fable's," in Humaniora: Essays in Literature, Folklore, Bibliography, edited by Wayland D. Hand and Gustave O. Arlt, J. J. Augustin Publisher, 1960, pp. 195-207.

In the following essay, Megas presents some oral Greek parallels to certain fables of Aesop in order to show how the oral tradition preserves the original relationships between animal actors and between action and moral better than the written tradition does.

It can be said concerning both folktales and fables that oral tradition preserves the original relationships more intact than does literary tradition.¹ This is especially true of Æsop's tales which, because of their shortness and their moral content, were used in the Schools of Rhetoric for centuries for the practice of students in writing correctly. They thus became linguistic essays whose main virtue was their concise form.² The "joy in relating" which is supposed...