ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an introduction to and translation of selections from a late antique collection of forty-two fables, written in Latin elegiac couplets and attributed to a fourth-century poet named Avianus. This particular collection of fables served an important purpose in the Latin Middle Ages, for many medieval educators used these fables in part to instruct youths in Latin grammar. Although not the only collection so used, Avianus's Fables were extremely popular in European schools from the Carolingian period until the eighteenth century. In addition to the fables themselves, this introduction explores briefly the genre of fable and its history in classical and medieval cultures the use of fables in medieval education, particularly Avianus's Fables; and the imitation of Avianus in the Middle Ages. It concludes with a note on the translations.
