Beast Fable

myth:beast_fable

The animal who speaks the moral: Aesop's crow and fox, the tortoise and the hare, La Fontaine's farmyard court — the old lesson wrapped in a beast's skin so it can be told to a child, or a king, without giving offence. The trick of the form is that the animal is wholly human in its wisdom and folly, while staying wholly animal in its shape. The most ancient classroom in the world. — world folklore