SOURCE: Greentree, Rosemary. “The Debate of the Paddock and the Mouse.” Studies in Scottish Literature 26 (1991): 481-89.

In this essay, Greentree examines the debate of the soul with the body in “The Paddock and the Mouse.”

The tale of “The Paddock and the Mouse,” the last in Henryson's series of Moral Fables offers several layers of meaning in the tale and its lengthy moralitas, giving a fable, an allegory, and a body and soul debate. The last aspect is the one I wish to consider in this paper, showing its resemblances to other works of this kind and Henryson's modification and exploitation of the reminders of this genre in his fable.

The tale appears in varied forms in many medieval collections, and it is generally assumed that Henryson used the version of Gualterus Anglicus, Walter the Englishman, as his source.¹ The moral usually drawn is that evil returns to...