Week Fourteen Reading Notes Part B - La Fontaine

Source Story: Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks by W. T. Larned (adapted from La Fontaine), illustrated by John Rae, 1918.

And

The Fables of La Fontaine translated by Elizur Wright (1882).

Web Source.

• "Mice"
• Mouse, cat, rooster - a mousling sees a cat and a rooster and, by appearances, assumes the cat to be friendly and the rooster an enemy. His mother sets him straight.
• Mouse becomes maid - a Brahmin saves an injured mouse and has her turned back into a maid from her previous life. They seek the strongest husband for her and end up choosing a rat
• "More Mice"
• Rats and cat - a cat kills most rats in the area, so the remaining decide they must hang a bell on his collar; of course, no one will volunteer, so nothing comes of it
• Cat and mice - a great mousing cat plays tricks to get the mice out of hiding, but one older mouse is too wise to come out
• "The Tortoise; The Bat"
• Tortoise and birds - a tortoise wants to see the world, so she grabs a stick in her mouth and two birds carry each end of it into the air; she opens her mouth to brag about it and falls to her death
• Bat and weasels - a bat saves herself from two weasels in turn by first claiming to be a bird, then a mouse
• "Frogs"
• Frog and rat - a frog tries to trick a rat into drowning so she can eat him, but they both end up getting caught and eaten by a bird
• Frogs ask for a king - frogs ask for a king and are sent a log; they ask for a king that moves and are sent a bird who kills a bunch of them 
• "The Swallow; The Eagle"
• Swallow and hemp - a wise swallow warns other birds to eat up the seed or pull up the roots of a hemp field before its grown, but they ignore her and get caught in nets when the hemp is done
• Eagle and beetle - an eagle eats a beetle's friend, the rabbit, so the beetle breaks her eggs every year for three years. Finally the gods essentially separate them
• "Man and Beast"
• Bear and gardener - a hermit bear and a lonely old man become friends, but the bear accidentally kills the man when trying to get a fly off his face
• Man and adder - a man catches a snake and plans to kill it for being ungrateful, but the snake gets a cow, and ox, and a tree to testify to how the man is the more ungrateful of the two; the man gets angry and kills the snake
• "The Astrologer; The Dairywoman"
• Astrologer - an astrologer falls into a well because he is looking at the stars rather than what's in front of him (followed by much philosophical pondering)
• Dairywoman - a woman carries a pot of milk on her head to sell at the market, but gets so caught up in fantasizing about what to do with the money that she loses her concentration and drops the pot, breaking it and losing the milk
• "The God Mercury; Hercules"
• Mercury and woodcutter - a woodcutter loses his axe and prays to Mercury, who shows him a gold, then a silver, then a normal axe. The woodcutter says the normal one is his, so Mercury gives him all three for his honesty. Then everyone tries to copy it, but they get hit on the head instead
• Hercules - A man's cart gets stuck in the mud, so he calls on Hercules for help, who gives him instructions on how to help himself
• "Sun and Wind; Belly and Members"
• Sun and Wind - they bet on which can make a traveler take his cloak off first; the wind tries to blow it off with hurricanes and driving rain, but the sun wins out by making the man too warm to wear it
• Belly and members - the limbs decide to mutiny against the belly for not doing any work, but it fails; metaphor for people serving a king

The sun makes the traveler take off his cloak, from Wikimedia Commons