f the chivalric lion be red and rampant, it is
rigidly red and rampant; if the sacred ibis stands anywhere on one
leg, it stands on one leg for ever. In this language, like a large
animal alphabet, are written some of the first philosophic certainties
of men. As the child learns A for Ass or B for Bull or C for Cow, so
man has learnt here to connect the simpler and stronger creatures with
the simpler and stronger truths. That a flowing stream cannot befoul
its own fountain, and that any one who says it does is a tyrant and a
liar; that a mouse is too weak to fight a lion, but too strong for the
cords that can hold a lion; that a fox who gets most out of a flat
dish may easily get least out of a deep dish; that the crow whom the
gods forbid to sing, the gods nevertheless provide with cheese; that
when the goat insults from a mountain-top it is not the goat that
insults, but the mountain: all these are deep truths deeply graven on
the rocks wherever men have passed. It matters nothing how old they
are, or how new; they are the alphabet of humanity, which like so
many forms of primitive picture-writing employs any living symbol
in preference to man. These ancient and universal tales are all of
animals; as the latest discoveries in the oldest pre-historic caverns
are all of animals. Man, in his simpler states, always felt that he
himself was something too mysterious to be drawn. But the legend he
carved under these cruder symbols was everywhere the same; and whether
fables began with AEsop or began with Adam, whether they were German
and mediaeval as Reynard the Fox, or as French and Renaissance as
La Fontaine, the upshot is everywhere essentially the same: that
superiority is always insolent, because it is always accidental; that
pride goes before a fall; and that there is such a thing as being too
clever by half. You will not find any other legend but this written
upon the rocks by any hand of man. There is every type and time of
fable: but there is only one moral to the fable; because there is only
one moral to everything_.

G. K. CHESTERTON

CONTENTS

THE FOX AND THE GRAPES

THE GOOSE THAT LAID THE GOLDEN EGGS

THE CAT AND THE MICE

THE MISCHIEVOUS DOG

THE CHARCOAL-BURNER AND THE FULLER

THE MICE IN COUNCIL

THE BAT AND THE WEASELS

THE DOG AND THE SOW

THE FOX AND THE CROW

THE HORSE AND THE GROOM

THE WOLF AND THE LAMB

THE PEACOCK AND THE CRANE

THE CAT AND THE BIRDS

THE SPENDTHRIFT