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

Week Fourteen Reading Notes Part A - 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.

• "Foolish Animals"
• Tortoise and the Hare - the classic race
• Donkey in a lion's skin - everyone is scared until a man realizes the truth and leads the "lion" to work in the field
• Frog and Ox - the frog wants to be as big as the ox, but puffs himself too big and explodes
• "More Foolish Animals"
• The dog and his image - drops the meat in the water because of his reflection
• City mouse and country mouse - get together for dinner but realize they prefer their own homes
• Joko the Monkey and Mouser the cat - Mouser burns his paw to get Joko chestnuts from a fire, but doesn't get any himself
• "Foxes"
• Fox and grapes - wants the grapes but cannot reach them
• Fox and stork - fox invites the stork for dinner but serves her soup on a plate so she can't eat it with her beak; she returns the invite but serves food in an urn that she can reach into with her beak, but fox cannot
• "Birds"
• Raven and fox - raven has a morsel that the fox wants; fox flatters him into singing and therefore dropping the food, which the fox steals
• Raven and sheep - raven sees an eagle swoop down and catch prey, so tries it with a sheep, but ends up getting caught in the wool and then put in the shepherd's birdcage
• Heron and fish - heron thinks he is too good to eat the fish he sees, so he ends up with only a snail for dinner
• "Insects"
• Grasshopper and ant - classic story
• Dove and ant - dove saves ant from drowning, so ant saves dove from being killed for a pie
• Lion and gnat - a gnat bites a lion and makes him scratch himself with his claws, but then the gnat gets caught in a spider's web
• "Foolish People"
• Hen and golden eggs - hen lays a golden egg for greedy man, who cuts off her head to see if there's more gold inside
• Acorn and pumpkin - a country bumpkin thinks acorns should grow on the ground and pumpkins in trees, until an acorn falls from a tree onto his head
• Man and his donkey - man, son, and donkey going to the market try to please everyone but finally decide to do what they think is best
• "Foxes and Wolves"
• Fox, wolf, and well - a fox sees the reflection of the moon in a well and thinks it's cheese, so he goes down in a bucket before realizing his error; he tricks a wolf into taking the bucket on the other side of the pulley to pull him up
• Fox, wolf, and horse - a fox and wolf are sizing up a horse and ask its name, so it tells them to read the name on the bottom of its horseshoe - it ends up kicking four teeth out of the wolf's mouth
• "Horses"
• Horse and revenge - horse wants revenge on stag for winning a race, so horse gets human's help to hunt the stag; inevitably, horse ends up stuck as human's servant forever
• Horse and wolf - a wolf pretends to be a doctor wanting to help a horse, but gets kicked in the mouth instead
• "Dogs"
• Dog and wolf - a wolf sees how well-fed a dog is and wants in on the action, until he realizes it comes at the cost of his liberty
• Donkey and dog - a dog wants food from the basket on a donkey's back, but the donkey will not let him, so when a wolf comes to attack the donkey, the dog doesn't help him either
• "Cats"
• Cat becomes woman - man loves his cat so much that she turns into a human and he marries her, but she still wants to chase mice all the time
• Cat, eagle, and sow - the three share a tree for raising their young, but the cat convinces the other two that each is trying to kill the other, so they all die of hunger and the cat gets the tree to herself

Image of a "wolf in sheep's clothing" from Max Pixel