Audiobook · read by volunteers
Aesop's Fables, Volume 11 (Fables 251-275)
Aesop (620–564 BC)
Read by David Barnes, Rob Howard, Nikolle Doolin, Westwinds12, Michelle Crandall · 25 chapters · 35 min
About the book
A butcher faces his customers, a hero meets a goddess, and a fox finds himself in the service of a lion: volume eleven of Aesop's Fables brings us fables 251 to 275, twenty-five more tiny stories with sharp morals. Titles such as The Butcher and His Customers, Hercules and Minerva and The Fox Who Served a Lion hint at the variety, from market-place dealings to encounters with the gods. Each tale lasts a minute or two, plain in language and clear in outcome, so listeners of any age can follow along. Five LibriVox volunteers, among them David Barnes and Rob Howard, share the reading. The volume lasts about thirty-five minutes in total, a perfect length for a lunch break or an evening wind-down, and it is a pleasant way to continue a journey through the whole series or to begin in the middle.
Introduction
Aesop, the legendary fabulist, is traditionally placed in the sixth century BC, with the years 620 to 564 BC often cited. Since almost nothing reliable survives about him, many scholars treat him as a figure who gathered older popular tales or gave his name to them. The fables themselves are what matters: tiny narratives in which animals, gods and humans act out the habits of everyday life.
This is the eleventh volume in a numbered LibriVox series, covering fables 251 to 275 in the 1912 English edition. Compared with the earlier volumes, which are full of foxes, wolves and crows, this one has a pleasant mix of settings: a butcher's stall, a meeting between the hero Hercules and the goddess Minerva, and a court where a fox must tread carefully in the presence of a lion.
The recording contains 25 chapters and runs about 0.6 hours. Five volunteers lend their voices, so the pace and mood shift pleasantly between fables.
Why listen now? Because the fables are short enough to fit into any day and rich enough to repay discussion. Parents will find them useful for conversation with children, teachers for classroom reading, and anyone for a gentle, thoughtful pause. Many of the sayings we use without thinking, from sour grapes to crying wolf, come from this tradition. The mix of everyday scenes and divine figures reminds us that the collection has several layers, from marketplace wisdom to courtly caution. If you listen with children, you might pause after each fable and ask what the lesson is, and whether they agree, since the morals are often open to a second opinion.
Public domain
Aesop died in 564 BC: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text