The Early Tradition of the Crow and the Pitcher

Abstract:For all the familiarity of the Aesopic fable of the Crow and the Pitcher, at least in Anglophone lands, no scholarly study of it has ever been made. A survey of the ancient texts reveals some surprising results. First, the early narrators relate the bird's actions mostly as an actual occurrence rather than as a folktale. Second, only toward the end of antiquity did some unknown author convert the narrative of the crow into a fable and invent a moral for it. How did it become a fable? The present essay illustrates how ancient makers of fable books went about their work, collecting and retelling traditional fables but also remaking narratives of other kinds into fables. Once the narrative of the Crow and the Pitcher was recast as a fable, it became a staple of written fable collections and has frequently been given visual treatment by illustrators.