Читать книгу Short Stories for English Courses - Various - Страница 19

The fable was one of the first tributaries to the stream of story- telling. Primitive man with a kind of fine democracy claimed kinship with the animals about him. So Hiawatha learned the language and the secrets of birds and beasts,

"Talked with them whene'er he met them,

Called them Hiawatha's Brothers."

Out of this intimacy and understanding grew the fable, wherein animals thought, acted, and talked in the terms of human life. This kind of story is illustrated by the "Fables" of Aesop, the animal stories of Ernest Thompson-Seton, the "Jungle Books" of Rudyard Kipling and the "Uncle Remus" stories of Joel Chandler Harris. The fable is a tale rather than a true short-story.