Some of our best-loved stories are thousands of years old. No one knows how, when, or where many of them originated. Some were told in a number of countries and in different forms long before books were made. For example, the story of Cinderella, in one form or another, has been told for centuries, in every country in Europe and even in some Asiatic countries. Stories that have come down from the past by word of mouth belong to what is known as folk literature; that is, literature created by the " folk", or common people.
Think how much poorer your own life would be without Aesop´s fables, or the fairy tales collected by the Brothers, Grimm, or Arabian tales such as "Aladdin" and "Sindbad the Sailor", or the Greek and Norse Myths, or the legends of King Arthur, and many many other tales.
Here I will write about a Fable. Aesop!
Aesop, a legendary character, whose fables have been popular for centuries, supposedly lived in Greece about two thousand years ago. He told a fable to teach a lesson. Many of his fables illustrate well-known proverbs. Though they are often humorous, they have
real meaning. Here you have one of the fables :
THE DONKEY AND THE SPONGES
A man drove his Donkey to the seaside,
and, having purchased there a load of salt,
proceeded on his way home. In crossing a
stream, the Donkey stumbled and fell into
the water.
He lay there sometime before he
regained his feet. Upon arising, he was de-
lighted to find that he had lost his burden.
A little while after that, the Donkey again
had occasion to cross the same stream, but
this time he carried a load of sponges.
Remembering his former good luck, he stum-
on purpose and again fell into the stream.
What was the surprise, upon arising, to
find that his load, far from disappearing,
had become many times heavier than before?
I hope you liked it :) Make yourself this question. What is the lesson of this fable? :0)
Thanks for :) following us!
Lucy Campbell/Language Specialist/Translator.
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