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was seen as one of the chief “false gods” whom the Hebrew people of the Old Testament had to overcome in establishing the Promised Land of Israel.
    Fables are simple, usually brief, fictitious stories, typically teaching a moral, or making a cautionary point, or, in some cases, satirizing human behavior. In many fables, the moral is usually told at the end, in the form of a proverb. Often, they feature animals that speak and act like human beings, as in the most famous examples—those attributed to Aesop, a Greek slave who supposedly lived about 600 BCE, but about whom little else is known. Stories like “The Tortoise and the Hare,” in which slow and steady wins the race, or “The Grasshopper and the Ant,” in which a fun-loving but lazy grasshopper plays while the ant dutifully stores away food for the winter, were simple morality tales.
    For generations, “Aesop’s Fables,” which may have come from more ancient sources, were handed down orally, until around 300 BCE, when they were gathered into a collection, Assemblies of Aesopic Tales . Compiled by an Athenian politician named Demetrius of Phaleron, this collection was later translated into Latin by Phaedrus, a freed Greek slave. About five hundred years later, in 230 CE, another Greek writer combined Aesop’s fables with similar tales from India and translated all of them into Greek verse. Among the world’s oldest known fables are those from India, called the Panchatantra , an anonymous collection written in Sanskrit (and translated as “five treasures”). Derived from Buddhist sources, they were probably written as instructions for the children of royalty.
    The fables of Aesop, which are sometimes intermingled with Greek myths, have remained an essential part of Western culture and are as familiar to children today as they may have been to Athenian children two thousand years ago. Such stories as “Androcles and the Lion,” in which a slave saves his own life by removing a thorn from the paw of a lion, or “The Crow and the Pitcher,” in which a thirsty crow fills a pitcher with stones to raise the water level so he can drink (moral: necessity is the mother of invention), are still widely told. And they permeate our language and literature. In “The Fox and the Grapes,” for example, a fox decides that some grapes growing too high for him to reach are probably sour anyway. The moral of the fable—that people often express a dislike for what they cannot have—is the source of the common expression “sour grapes.”
    Related to fables are folktales , another type of story usually handed down orally, which often deals with common people and is primarily meant to entertain rather than instruct. Unlike legends, folktales are not supposed to have actually happened and don’t usually involve national heroes. Although the term “folktale” is often used interchangeably with “fairy tale,” they are two different forms. Folktales generally tell of the customs, superstitions, and beliefs of ordinary people; fairy tales are usually filled with elves, pixies, fairies, and other supernatural creatures with magical powers. In both of these, the central character tends to be a person of low status, frequently trapped in a case of mistaken identity, who has been victimized or persecuted, like Cinderella by her wicked step-sisters. Over time, and often with magical help, they overcome adversity and their goodness is rewarded as they are restored to their proper place in society. In other words, for average people, folk-and fairy tales are the equivalent of stories of people winning the lottery, always holding out hope that some stroke of luck or miraculous intervention will change their luck and fortune forever.
    The tales of Arabian Nights , including “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” “Aladdin’s Lamp,” and “Sinbad the Sailor,” are examples of the best-known folk-and fairy tales. Another collection of the most familiar folk-and fairy tales