Notes, pp. 246, 247.) The fable has found its way among European folk tales in Germany, Poland, and Iceland.
VII.—TOWN AND COUNTRY MOUSE (Ro. i. 12).
Horace, Sat. II. vi. 77. It must also have occurred in Phædrus, as the medieval prose version of Ademar contains a relic in the Iambic Trimeter of the line—
Perduxit precibus post in urbem rusticum.
Prior and Montagu elaborated the fable for political purposes in their "Town and Country Mouse," 1687.
VIII.—FOX AND CROW (Ro. i. 15).
Phædrus, i. 13. Probably Indian. There are a couple of Jatakas having the same moral. There is an English proverb: "The Fox praises the meat out of the Crow's mouth." The fable is figured on the Bayeux tapestry. (See Frontispiece to History.) Thackeray makes use of it in his pot pourri of fables in the Prologue to The Newcomes. It is perhaps worth while quoting Professor de Gubernatis's solar myth explanation of the fable in his Zoological Mythology, ii. 251: "The Fox (the Spring aurora) takes the cheese (the Moon) from the Crow (the winter night) by making it sing!"
IX.—THE SICK LION (Ro. i. 16).
Phædrus, i. 21.
X.—ASS AND LAP-DOG (Ro. i. 17).
Not in extant Phædrus, but must have been in the complete edition, as the medieval prose versions preserve some of the lines.
