Aesop Aesop Aesop ( ; , ""; c. 620 – 564 BCE) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as "Aesop's Fables". Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Many of the tales are characterized by animals and inanimate objects that speak, solve problems, and generally have human characteristics. Scattered details of Aesop's life can be found in ancient sources, including Aristotle, Herodotus, and Plutarch. An
Aesop's Fables as in the case of The Hawk and the Nightingale (133-5). It also includes the earliest instance of The Lion, the Bear and the Fox (60) in a language other than Greek. Another voluminous collection of fables in Latin verse was Anthony Alsop's "Fabularum Aesopicarum Delectus" (Oxford 1698). The bulk of the 237 fables there are prefaced by the text in Greek, while there are also a handful in Hebrew and in Arabic; the final fables, only attested from Latin sources, are without other versions. For the most part the poems are confined to a lean telling of the fable