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 and the Jewel rejects it as being of no practical use to himself. The rejection is generally shown in the form of a direct address by the cockerel to the gemstone, as in this modern English translation: "The Cock and the Jewel" was given prominence in medieval Europe by virtue of the fact that it opens what was then a standard text for the teaching of grammar, the so-called "elegaic Romulus". This was generally committed to memory in early school years. The fable is typically short and given in eight lines of elegaic metre with a further two providing a moral judgement. It