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
Chanticleer and the Fox then seizes her; the partridge persuades the fox to pronounce her name before eating her and so escapes. In the following century Marie de France tells a fable very similar to the Renart version in Old French verse. Similar short tales had followed the long telling in the Reynard Cycle. They include the story of Renart and the Tomtit, in which the frustrated fox tries to persuade his 'cousin' to greet him with a kiss and eventually has to flee at the approach of dogs. This is obviously a variant version of The Cock, the Dog and the Fox. After