Chanticleer and the Fox the question of its origin. It has also been asserted that the tale has developed out of the basic situation in Aesop's fable of The Fox and the Crow. Early examples of the story are pithily fabular but towards the middle of the 12th century it appears as an extended episode of the "Reynard cycle" under the title "How Renart captured Chanticleer the cock" ("Si comme Renart prist Chanticler le Coq"). The work of which it was part was immensely popular and spread widely in translation. The basic situation concerns the cock Chanticleer, who lives with his three wives in
The Cock, the Dog and the Fox for its former slaughter. In its journey westwards, the tale was eventually included in The Thousand and One Nights and was translated by Richard F. Burton as "The Pleasant History of the Cock and the Fox". This version, enlarged by the fox's many flights of rhetoric, recounts how the beast tries to lure the cock down from a wall with the news that universal friendship has been declared between the hunters and the hunted. The cock refuses even to acknowledge the fox's fine words but finally announces that he is convinced for he can see greyhounds running towards them who