Ancient collections of fables that have reached us show that, at first, the fable existed precisely as a fable-instruction. Mockery and then exposure (satire) appeared in the fable later. The oldest fabulist in Europe is generally considered to be the legendary Aesop—perhaps not so much a writer as someone who collected what people were living by and adapted it into his moral lessons. With confidence, one can say that all fabulists of the past and present came out of Aesop. In this collection, besides works by the very first fabulist, you will also find other—no less interesting—fables by foreign authors.