Le Corbeau et le Renard: Collection Fables

Abstract

This die-cut pamphlet of eight pages, which starts very abruptly without a title-page, seems to be the fourth in a series I am finding. Others from the same year and publisher include Le Lion et le Rat, Le Loup et le Chien, and La Cigale et la Fourmi. As in those other three, this fable is told in French prose and evidences several changes in the story from its best-known traditional versions. Here the crow attacks a rat for the cheese. The crow inadvertently knocks a pine cone onto the head of the fox below him! Only that surprise alerts the fox to the crow's presence and treasure. This version misses La Fontaine's great observation that flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them. Like the other three pamphlets mentioned, this booklet is printed in Spain and copyrighted in 1984 by Ediciones A. Saldaña.