An Evening of Aesop
Classical Stories · No. 100 — The greatest fables in one sitting, and the very last question to keep.
- Classical Stories
- 43 min
- Ages 8–13
- 7 chapters
About this audiobook
For the finale of the series, the narrator gathers the listener close for an evening of Aesop — the ancient Greek storyteller whose fables are the tiniest and most enduring stories in the world. One after another, the great small tales unfold: the slow tortoise who beats the boastful hare by never stopping; the shepherd boy who cries 'wolf!' for fun until no one believes his true alarm; the ant who works through summer while the grasshopper sings, and the hungry winter that follows; the fox who decides the grapes he cannot reach were sour anyway; the mighty lion spared by a tiny mouse who later gnaws him free of a hunter's net. Each is over in a minute and each carries a truth that has outlived empires. And as the fire burns low on the hundredth story, the narrator turns to the listener with the last question of all — not about any single fable, but about the whole long journey of a hundred tales, and why we have been telling them.
Why it's worth a listen
The hundredth and final episode gathers the tiny, perfect stories that may be the most-told of all: the tortoise who beats the hare, the boy who cried wolf, the ant and the grasshopper, the fox and the grapes, the lion and the mouse, and more — the fables of Aesop, so short a child can hold them and so wise a whole life can't wear them out. A warm fireside finale for a series about why humans tell stories at all, ending where storytelling is simplest and oldest.
A question to keep
After a hundred stories from all the world, what is the smallest story that still holds the most?
Chapters
- The Last Fire of the Hundred Nights
- The Dust and the Speed
- The Empty Hills
- The Song and the Seed
- A Garland of Quick Shadows
- The Great and the Small
- A Question to Keep