Why does wrong mind father tell the fable

In his eagerness to kill it, he hit himself a smart slap. But the fly escaped, and said to him in derision, "You tried to kill me for just one little bite; what will you do to yourself now, for the heavy smack you have just given yourself?

Vernon Jones London: William Heinemann, , p. Link to additional folktales about bald men. When evening came they all sat down under a tree to rest, when one of them said, "Let us count to see if we are all here. Fearing some evil, they now rose up, and at once set out to search for their missing comrade.

Presently they met a shepherd, who greeted them civilly and said, "Friends, why are you in such low spirits? Have you seen any one of us hereabouts? We owe you a debt of gratitude. Because you have done us this service, we insist on doing a month's free labor for you.

Now, the shepherd's mother was a very old woman, in her dotage, utterly feeble and unable to help herself. When the morning came he placed her under the care of one of the Buneyris, saying to him, "You will stay here and take care of my old mother. To another Buneyri he said, "You take out my goats, graze them on the hills by day, and watch over them by night. The man who was left in charge of the old crippled mother found that his time was fully occupied in the constant endeavor to drive off the innumerable flies which in that hot season kept her in a state of continual excitement and irritation.

When, however, he saw that all his efforts were fruitless, and that he flapped the wretches away in vain, he became desperate, and, lifting up a large stone, he aimed it deliberately at a certain fly which had settled on the woman's face. Hurling it with all his might, he of course missed the fly, but, alas! When the shepherd saw this he wrung his hands in despair.

The fly has escaped, but as for my poor old mother, you have killed her dead. Meanwhile, the second Buneyri led his flock of goats up and down among the hills, and when midday came he rested to eat his bread, while many of the assembled goats lay down beside him.

As he was eating he began to observe how the goats were chewing the cud and occasionally looking at him So he foolishly imagined that they were mocking him, and waxed wroth. That night was a sorrowful one for the trustful shepherd, and bitterly he repented his rashness.

In the morning the remaining five wise men of Buneyr came to him, and said, "It is now our turn. Give us some work to do, too! The episode describing the fools' inability to count themselves is a type folktale. The Bear and the Amateur of Gardening Jean de La Fontaine A certain mountain bruin once, they say, Was wont within a lonely wood to stray, A new Bellerophon secluded there, His mind had gone, and left his brain-pan bare.

Reason on lonely people sheds no ray. It's good to speak -- better to silent stay: Both in excess are bad. No animal Was ever seen, or was within a call.

Bear though he was, he wearied of this life, And longed for the world's joy and the world's strife. Then "Melancholy marked him for her own. Not far from him an old man lived alone. Dull as the bear, he loved his garden well; Was priest of Flora and Pomona; still, Though the employment's pleasant, a kind friend Is needfull, its full charms to it to lend. Gardens talk little, save in my small book. Weary at last of their mere smiling look, And those his dumb companions, one fine day, Our man set forth upon his lonely way, To seek a friend.

The bear, with the same thought, Had left his mountain, satisfied with naught. By chance most strange the two adventurers meet At the same turning. He's afraid to greet The bear; but fly he can't. What can he do? Well, like a Gascon, he gets neatly through: Conceals his fright. The bear is not well bred; "Here is my cottage; pray come in, my lord;" Still growls, "Come see me!

I have milk and fruit, That will, perhaps, your worship's pleasure suit For once, though not your ordinary fare. I offer all I have. In my opinion it's a golden rule: Better be lonely than be with a fool.

The bear, who did not speak two words a day, Left the drudge there to work and toil away. One day a buzzer o'er the sleeping man Poised, and then settled on his nose -- their plan.

The bear was crazy: all his chase was vain; "I'll catch you, thief! It came again. He crushed the fly, but smashed the poor man's skull -- A sturdy thrower, but a reasoner dull. La Fontaine's fables, published in twelve books between and , exemplify the grace and wit of his age.

Fortunio Italy, Giovanni Francesco Straparola Fortunio, a servant, endeavoring to crush a fly, kills his master, and saves himself from the gallows by a pleasantry. There lived in the city of Ferrara a rich grocer of good descent, who had in his service Fortunio, a fat good-tempered fellow of very slender wit. Now in the great heats the grocer was wont to lie down to sleep in the middle of the day, and at such times it was Fortunio's part to keep off the flies with a fan, lest they should disturb his master.

One day it chanced that, amongst the others, was a very greedy meddlesome horsefly, which took no heed of Fortunio's fanning, nor of his strokes, but alighted constantly on the grocer's bald pate and stung him grievously. And though the fly was chased away three or four times, it always came back to give fresh trouble. At last the servant, incensed at the boldness and persistency of the fly, rashly made trial to kill it when it was about to settle again on his master's temple and suck his blood.

Simple fool that he was, he caught up a weighty bronze pestle, and, striking at the fly with all his might with the intent to kill it, he made an end of the grocer instead. As soon as Fortunio saw that he had slain his master and thereby made himself liable to death by the law, he took counsel with himself how he might best save his neck, and first resolved to seek safety in flight, but he afterwards fixed upon another scheme, which was to bury the corpse secretly.

Therefore, having wrapped up the dead body of his master in a sack and carried it into a garden adjacent to the shop, he buried it there. This done he went to the sheepfold, and, having chosen a big old ram, he took it and threw it down the well. As the master did not appear at his usual hour in the evening the wife's suspicion fell upon Fortunio, and she questioned him as to her husband's whereabouts, but the fellow declared stoutly that he knew nothing of it.

Then the good wife, overcome with grief, began to weep and to call for her husband aloud, but she called in vain. She went to her kinsfolk and told them her grief; whereupon they sought the governor of the city, and laid the crime to Fortunio's charge, demanding that he should be imprisoned and put to the question, in order to make him tell what had become of his master.

The governor, having put the servant in hold and tied him to the rope, gave him the strappado as prescribed by law, on account of the charges against him. Handling of this sort was not to his taste, and he forthwith promised to tell all he knew, if they would let him down. So they brought him before the judge, and this was the cunning tale he had prepared for their befooling: "Yesterday, O judge!

In my amazement I ran to the well and looked into it, but the water was quite clear and I could see nothing amiss; so I turned to go back to the house, when the same noise again met my ears. I am now quite sure in my mind that my master, when trying to draw some water up out of the well, fell down into it.

Now, that the truth of the matter may be laid bare, I make petition that all now present may go to the spot; then I will descend into the well and disclose what I may find therein. There went not only the worshipful persons who were about the judge, but also a vast crowd of the common people, who were curious to learn what might be the issue of the affair. Fortunio, obeying the commandment of the judge, went straightway down the well, and, when he had reached the bottom, made believe to be searching for his master's body in the water; but what he found was the carcass of the old ram which he himself had lately cast in.

Feigning to be vastly amazed at this, the cunning fellow bawled up from the bottom of the well, "O my mistress! Tell me whether your husband, my poor master, had horns or not; for I have alighted on somebody down here who has got an enormous pair, both long and large. Is it possible that he can be your husband?

Meanwhile the bystanders waited, open-mouthed with curiosity, to set eyes on this corpse with horns, and to see whether it really was the body of the missing grocer or not; and when they saw hauled up Fortunio's old ram, they all clapped their hands, and were shaken by loud laughter. The judge, when he saw the issue of Fortunio's search, deemed that the foolish fellow was acting in good faith, and that he verily believed what he brought out of the well to be the remains of his master.

On this account the judge let him go free, as innocent, but the grocer was never seen more, and the good wife, to her dying day, bore the shame anent the horns which Fortunio's cunning trick had cast upon her. We know almost nothing about the personal life of Giovanni Francesco [also spelled Gianfrancesco] Straparola ca. His two-volume work Le piacevoli notti , called in English The Facetious Nights of Straparola or simply The Nights of Straparola , contains some 75 novellas and fairy tales, some of oriental origin.

Obviously patterning his collection after Boccaccio's Decamerone , Straparola depicts here thirteen nights of revelry in a luxurious villa on the island of Murano near Venice. The participants add to the entertainment by telling one another stories. Included are tales of magic and the supernatural as well as bawdy jokes and anecdotes. Straparola's work is one of Europe's earliest collections of stories based largely on folklore. It sets, it sets! Now there were near the way some thieves who were skinning a calf which they had stolen, and when they heard, "It appears, it sets!

He took his knife and cut off flesh enough to fill his sack and went home. When he arrived there his mother asked him why he came so late. He said it was because he was bringing some meat which she was to sell the next day, and the money was to be kept for him. The next day his mother sent him into the country and sold the meat. I sold the flies meat on credit, and they have not come to pay me. He sent to the judge and complained of them.

The judge laughed and said, "Wherever you see a fly you can strike it. His exploits compare to those of Germany's Till Eulenspiegel and Turkey's Hodja, to mention but two of his many counterparts in other nations. The Little Omelet Italy Once upon a time there was a little woman who had a little room and a little hen.

The hen laid an egg and the little woman took it and made a little omelet of it, and put it to cool in the window. Along came a fly and ate it up. Imagine what an omelet that must have been! The little woman went to the magistrate and told him her story. He gave her a club and told her to kill the fly with it wherever she saw it.

At that moment a fly lighted on the magistrate's nose, and the woman, believing it to be the same fly, gave it a blow and broke the magistrate's nose. Permission Granted, but Probably Regreted Switzerland A peasant left a jug of milk with a neighbor for safekeeping.

When he reclaimed the jug, the milk had disappeared. Angry words led to a lawsuit, and the judge decreed that the neighbor should pay for the milk, even though the latter claimed that the flies had consumed it. In that moment the peasant saw a fly on the judge's cheek. He stepped up to him and gave him a slap, saying, "I bet that cursed fly is one of those who drank up the milk! Translated by D. It is usually best to plan these events out ahead of time to ensure the fable resolves in such a way as to illustrate the moral it was intended to.

This step is interchangeable with Step 4 as these two elements are inextricably linked. Choosing a setting will often suggest specific types of animals as characters for the story. If the characters are chosen first, these will typically indicate a possible setting or two. Fables typically make use of a few familiar settings, so there is usually no need to over-egg the pudding by going into extensive detail.

Some common settings include:. The next step will involve choosing characters to act out the plot of the story. The characters in fables are not the laboriously drawn and psychologically authentic complex portraits that we might find in literary fiction or sophisticated thrillers. They are most often pretty one-dimensional archetypes that are used to act out some form of a conflict of opposites.

Knowing which traits you wish to embody can also help in choosing specific types of characters. Woodland creatures serve well here. Creatures such as squirrels, foxes, mice, owls, etc. Aesop simply names his characters by type. The Wolf , The Crow , etc. Again, students can just name these by type. By now, students should have all the raw material for their stories: a moral to communicate, a conflict to build a plot arc around, a setting to place the story in, characters to perform the actions, and a climax and resolution to tie things up.

Once they have completed their first draft, students should spend some time editing and proofreading their work before handing it in. The editing and proofreading stage is a frequently overlooked part of the writing process and, yet, it is often the stage that has the most valuable writing lessons for students to learn.

The beauty of writing in this genre lies in its simplicity. Once a clear moral has been chosen, the student has the broad coordinates of their ending, making the writing process all the more straightforward. Students should also avoid getting too wordy or constructing too complex a plot.

They should aim clearly at ending their fable with a single, succinct final sentence that expresses the moral of the tale. If they manage this, soon, your students will be writing fables to rival any tunic-wearing ancient Greek!

Use the resources and tools below with your students to improve their writing skills through proven teaching strategies. Content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh. A former principal of an international school and university English lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience. Editing and support for this article have been provided by the literacyideas team.

Skip to content. Glossary of Literary Terms This glossary of literary terms is designed to assist teachers and students to better understand the terminology associated with teaching and learning English and Literacy as a whole. Be sure to explore our in-depth articles on Literary devices and the elements…. They cover every aspect of the…. Why are they important? What Is a Simile Poem?

Simile poems are simply poems that are built around an extended simile or a series of similes. What exactly is it that makes a poem different, for example, to a piece of prose? Or song lyrics, even? What Is Hyperbole? Like many of the terms used for our literary devices, the origins of the word hyperbole lie in ancient Greek.

The sense here is that of over-reaching to convey an amplified meaning, that is, exaggeration. The king had the jungle surrounded and ordered his troops to begin slashing their way through it. At the conclusion of the campaign, the king could announce that all tigers in the jungle, including presumably the murderous one, had been hunted down and killed.

During the tumult of the war, however, the petition had been lost or forgotten. The petitioners therefore sent another appeal. A second track was deemed necessary, as the original track could no longer support the increasing traffic. The tribute demanded by the dragon-tyrant had increased to one hundred thousand human beings, to be delivered to the foot of the mountain every evening at the onset of dark.

When the budget was finally approved, however, reports were coming from a remote part of the country that a village was suffering from a rattlesnake infestation. The king had to leave urgently to mobilize his army and ride off to defeat this new threat. The anti-dragonists met again to decide what was to be done.

The debate was animated and continued long into the night. It was almost daybreak when they finally resolved to take the matter to the people. Over the following weeks, they traveled around the country, gave public lectures, and explained their proposal to anyone who would listen. At first, people were skeptical.

They had been taught in school that the dragon-tyrant was invincible and that the sacrifices it demanded had to be accepted as a fact of life. Yet when they learnt about the new composite material and about the designs for the projectile, many became intrigued. In increasing numbers, citizens flocked to the anti-dragonist lectures. Activists started organizing public rallies in support of the proposal. When the king read about these meetings in the newspaper, he summoned his advisors and asked them what they thought about it.

They informed him about the petitions that had been sent but told him that the anti-dragonists were troublemakers whose teachings were causing public unrest. It was much better for the social order, they said, that the people accepted the inevitability of the dragon-tyrant tribute. The dragon-administration provided many jobs that would be lost if the dragon was slaughtered.

There was no known social good coming from the conquest of the dragon. He therefore decided to hold an open hearing. Leading dragonologists, ministers of the state, and interested members of the public were invited to attend. The meeting took place on the darkest day of the year, just before the Christmas holidays, in the largest hall of the royal castle.

The hall was packed to the last seat and people were crowding in the aisles. The mood was charged with an earnest intensity normally reserved for pivotal wartime sessions. After the king had welcomed everyone, he gave the floor to the leading scientist behind the anti-dragonist proposal, a woman with a serious, almost stern expression on her face. She proceeded to explain in clear language how the proposed device would work and how the requisite amount of the composite material could be manufactured.

Given the requested amount of funding, it should be possible to complete the work in fifteen to twenty years. With an even greater amount of funding, it might be possible to do it in as little as twelve years. However, there could be no absolute guarantee that it would work. The crowd followed her presentation intently.

Now she desires that we get rid of the dragon. How willful and presumptuous. The finitude of human life is a blessing for every individual, whether he knows it or not. Getting rid of the dragon, which might seem like such a convenient thing to do, would undermine our human dignity. The preoccupation with killing the dragon will deflect us from realizing more fully the aspirations to which our lives naturally point, from living well rather than merely staying alive.

It is debasing, yes debasing, for a person to want to continue his or her mediocre life for as long as possible without worrying about some of the higher questions about what life is to be used for. But I tell you, the nature of the dragon is to eat humans, and our own species-specified nature is truly and nobly fulfilled only by getting eaten by it The audience listened respectfully to this highly decorated speaker.

The phrases were so eloquent that it was hard to resist the feeling that some deep thoughts must lurk behind them, although nobody could quite grasp what they were. Surely, words coming from such a distinguished appointee of the king must have profound substance. The speaker next in line was a spiritual sage who was widely respected for his kindness and gentleness as well as for his devotion.

He is probably wiser than an old fool like me. At first, the boy was too scared and confused to move. She said that we would make a little house out of gingerbread and little gingerbread men that would live in it.

Then those people in white clothes came and took Granny away to the dragon… The dragon is bad and it eats people… I want my Granny back! At this point the child was crying so hard that the sage had to return him to his parents. The people were backing the anti-dragonists, and by the end of the evening even the king had come to recognize the reason and the humanity of their cause. As the news spread, celebrations erupted in the streets. Those who had been campaigning for the anti-dragonists toasted each other and drank to the future of humanity.

The next morning, a billion people woke up and realized that their turn to be sent to the dragon would come before the projectile would be completed. A tipping point was reached. Mass rallies raised money for the projectile project and urged the king to increase the level of state support. The king responded to these appeals. In his New Year address, he announced that he would pass an extra appropriations bill to support the project at a high level of funding; additionally, he would sell off his summer castle and some of his land and make a large personal donation.

Thus started a great technological race against time. The concept of an anti-dragon projectile was simple, but to make it a reality required solutions to a thousand smaller technical problems, each of which required dozens of time-consuming steps and missteps.

Test-missiles were fired but fell dead to the ground or flew off in the wrong direction. In one tragic accident, a wayward missile landed on a hospital and killed several hundred patients and staff.

But there was now a real seriousness of purpose, and the tests continued even as the corpses were being dug out from the debris. The decade concluded and the dragon was still alive and well. But the effort was getting closer. A prototype missile had been successfully test fired.

Production of the core, made of the expensive composite material, was on schedule for its completion to coincide with the finishing of the fully tested and debugged missile shell into which it was to be loaded. The best-selling Christmas gift that year was a calendar that counted down the days to time zero, the proceeds going to the projectile project. The king had undergone a personal transformation from his earlier frivolous and thoughtless self. He now spent as much time as he could in the laboratories and the manufacturing plants, encouraging the workers and praising their toil.

Sometimes he would bring a sleeping bag and spend the night on a noisy machine floor. He even studied and tried to understand the technical aspects of their work. Yet he confined himself to giving moral support and refrained from meddling in technical and managerial matters. Seven days before New Year, the woman who had made the case for the project almost twelve years earlier, and was now its chief executive, came to the royal castle and requested an urgent audience with the king.

When the king got her note, he excused himself to the foreign dignitaries whom he was reluctantly entertaining at the annual Christmas dinner and hurried off to the private room where the scientist was waiting. As always of late, she looked pale and worn from her long working hours. This evening, however, the king also thought he could detect a ray of relief and satisfaction in her eyes.

She told him that the missile had been deployed, the core had been loaded, everything had been triple-checked, they were ready to launch, and would the king give his final go-ahead.

The king sank down in an armchair and closed his eyes. He was thinking hard. By launching the projectile tonight, one week early, seven hundred thousand people would be saved. Yet if something went wrong, if it missed its target and hit the mountain instead, it would be a disaster.

A new core would have to be constructed from scratch and the project would be set back by some four years. He sat there, silently, for almost an hour. I want you to go right back to the lab. I want you to check and then re-check everything again. The last day of the year was cold and overcast, but there was no wind, which meant good launch conditions. The sun was setting. Technicians were scuttling around making the final adjustments and giving everything one last check.

The king and his closest advisors were observing from a platform close to the launch pad. Further away, behind a fence, large numbers of the public had assembled to witness the great event.

A large clock was showing the countdown: fifty minutes to go.