SHORT HISTORY OF THE AESOPIC FABLE xix

standard AZsop of medieval Christendom. he same history
applies in large measure to the Fables of Avian, which were
done into prose, transferred back into Latin verse, and sent
forth through Europe from England.

Meanwhile Babrius had been suffering the same fate as
Phedrus. His scazons were turned into poor Greek prose,
and selections of them pass to this day as the original Fables
of Hsop. Some fifty of these were .selected, and with the
addition of a dozen Oriental fables, were attributed to an
imaginary Persian sage, Syntipas ; this collection was trans-
lated into Syriac, and thence into Arabic, where they passed
under the name of the legendary Léqman (probably a doublet
of Balaam). A still larger collection of the Greek prose
versions got into Arabic, where it was enriched by some 60
fables. from the Arabic Bidpai and other sources, but still
passed under the name of Aisop. This collection, containing
164 fables, was brought to England after the Third Crusade
of Richard I., and translated into Latin by an Englishman
named Alfred, with the aid of an Oxford Jew named
Berachyah ha-Nakdan (“ Benedictus le Puncteur” in the
English Records), who, on his own account, translated a
number of the fables into Hebrew rhymed prose, under the
Talmudic title A@ishle Shu‘alim (Fox Fables)... Part of
Alfred’s AZsop was translated into English alliterative verse,
and this again was translated about 1200 into. French by
Marie de France, who attributed the new fables to King
Alfred. After her no important addition was made to the
medieval A‘sop.

"I have given specimens of his Fables in my Hews of Angevin England,
Pp. 165-173, 278-281.