The fable was one of the first tributaries to the stream of story-
telling. Primitive man with a kind of fine democracy claimed
kinship with the animals about him. So Hiawatha learned the
language and the secrets of birds and beasts,
"Talked with them whene'er he met them,
Called them Hiawatha's Brothers."
Out of this intimacy and understanding grew the fable, wherein
animals thought, acted, and talked in the terms of human life.
This kind of story is illustrated by the "Fables" of Aesop, the
animal stories of Ernest Thompson-Seton, the "Jungle Books" of
Rudyard Kipling and the "Uncle Remus" stories of Joel Chandler
Harris. The fable is a tale rather than a true short-story.