^{page 497 note 1} The present paper was read at the last meeting of the Modern Language Association. The time allowed was fifteen minutes; hence the condensed nature of the work. The aim of the paper was to present several distinct ideas that came to the writer in the course of a somewhat prolonged study of the story, rather than to support any one thesis. The footnotes, it is hoped, may suffice to support most of the statements that were unsupported in the paper as read.

^{page 497 note 2} This does not mean that beast stories do not appear at all elsewhere in Middle English literature. Fables appear in the Ayenbite of Inwyt, Piers Plowman, Gesta Romanorum, and the English translation of Barlaam and Josaphat. Lydgate is the author of a collection of seven fables (Anglia, ix, 1 ff.). One may mention also the fable of Lion, Wolf and Ass (T. Wright, Pol. Songs, p. 195) and the poem concerning “fais fox” (T. Wright, Rel. Antiquae, i, 4). N. Bozon, Odo of Sherington, and John of Sheppey certainly derived their fables in part from English popular sources. The French fable of Wolf and Sheep, by N. Bozon ends with the English words, “ For was hyt neuer myn kynd chese in welle to fynd.” Further it should be remembered that fable versions of our story of fox and wolf in the well appear not only in the Middle English translations of the Disciplina Clericalis, but in the just-mentioned fable of sheep and wolf by N. Bozon, where the sheep plays the part usually played by the wolf, and in the Scotch collection of fables by Henryson. In Henryson's version the fable of fox and wolf is told in very spirited style. The fox (“Tod”) bears the name “Lowrence” and the wolf that of “Freir Wolf Waitskaith.”

^{page 499 note 1} Besides the ordinary version of the French Roman de Renart there is a simpler version which is preserved in a unique manuscript (Bibl. de l'Arsenal, 3334) and has been printed by Chabaille in a supplement to Méon's edition of the Roman.

^{page 500 note 1} The notion of attracting the wolf by describing a paradise at the bottom of the well seems to be peculiar to the two versions of Branch iv of the Roman de Renart, the French Renart le Contrefait, the Middle High German Reinhart Fuchs and the English Vox and Wolf. There are, however, among the French folk many superstitions concerning wells (P. Sébillot, Le Folk-lore de France, II, ch. iii), “ Le fond des puits ou des citernes est parfois me sorte de purgatoire temporaire” (p. 307). “Certains puits passaient pour être si profonde qu'ils touchaient à un monde souterain (p. 323). See A. Milieu, ”La veillée dans le puits“ (Rev. des trad, pop., i, p. 24). M. R. Basset cites an Arabic story in which a man goes to the well to draw water. The bucket falls to the bottom. The man descends to get the bucket and finds a door opening into a garden of Paradise (Rev. des trad. pop., xv, p. 667).

^{page 500 note 2} This is the form of the tale as it appears in the second part of the Flemish Reynaert, and in the derived versions; a German Volksbuch, Reinecke der Fuchs (Leipzig, 1840), the Reinecke Fuchs of Goethe, and the English version by Caxton. This is the form of the tale also in Odo of Sherington, John of Sheppey, and Nicole Bozon, in the Spanish translation from Odo in the Libro de los Gatos, no. 14, in the fourteenth century Italian version printed by K. McKenzie (Publ. M. L. A., xxi, 226 ff.) and in the apparently cognate tale of rabbit and fox told by Uncle Remus.

^{page 501 note 1} Things to eat, “ manger süssen spise,” attract the wolf in the version appearing in Lassberg's Lieder Saal, though this version in some respects is closely related to the version in the French Roman and the eleventh century German Reinhart Fuchs; a hen is the bait in the tale as told by J. Regnier and by San Bernardino.

^{page 501 note 2} In certain modern French versions of the tale, the wolf is attracted by the prospect of a girl, or girls, bathing in the well, whom the wolf wishes to embrace (cf. Breton tale printed by L. F. Sauvé, Rev. des trad. pop., i, 363-4 and a tale of La Bresse, “Le Renard de Bassieu et le loup D'Hotonnes,” printed by P. Sébillot in Contes des Provinces de France. In a French popular tale of Bas Languedoc (P. Redonnel, Rev. des trad. pop., iii, 611, 612) and in a German tale (J. Haltrieh, Deutsche Volksmärchen, no. 100, Wien, 1877) the wolf is impelled solely by thirst, and in a Walloon tale (A. Gittée and J. Lemoine, Contes des pays wallon, pp. 159-169), he descends to the bottom of the well in angry pursuit of the fox. In a fifteenth century German version (printed by J. Baechtold, Germania, xxxiii, 257) the fox merely tells the wolf “dz mir all min tag nie so wol wz.

^{page 501 note 3} K. Krohn (Bär (Wolf) und Fuchs, p. 41) expresses the belief that the reflection of the moon mistaken for cheese, enters not only beast-epic, but fable literature, through the story in the Disciplina Clericalis and its translations. Besides the versions mentioned above, and the direct translations from Petrus Alfonsus, may be named the German version by B. Waldis (ed. H. Kurz, Book 3, Fab. 27), the French related story by N. Bozon (Contes Moralisés, 64, 65, the Latin version by Desbillons (Fabulœ Æsopiœ, Book 3, Fab. 10), the Spanish version (El libro de los Enxemplos, no. 307), and a late English text-book version (G. Wright, The Principles of Grammar. …, London, 1794).

^{page 502 note 1} The allusion in Branch i is, perhaps, to another story combination;

^{page 502 note 2} Among other such tales might be mentioned: the Servian tale where the fox leads the wolf to believe the moon reflection in the water is a cheese and the wolf bursts in the attempt to drink up the water to get at the cheese (F. S. Krauss, Sagen und Märchen der Südslaven, i, 31); the Zulu tale of the hyena that drops the bone to go after the moon reflection in the water (Nursery tales. … of the Zulus, transI, by the Rev. Canon Callaway); the Gascon tale of the peasant watering his ass on a moonlight night. A cloud obscures the moon, and the peasant, thinking the ass has drunk the moon, kills the beast to recover the moon (E. K. Blumml, Schnurren und Schwänke); the Turkish tale of the Khoja Nasru-'d-Din who thinks the moon has fallen into the well and gets a rope and chain with which to pull it out. In his efforts the rope breaks, and he falls back, but seeing the moon in the sky, praises Allah that the moon is safe (W. A. Clouston, Book of Noodles, p. 92); the Scotch tale of the wolf fishing with his tail for the moon reflection (Campbell, Tales of the West Highlands, i, 272). See also N. Bozon, Contes Moralisés, no. 96; Pantschatantra, ii, 226 ff.; H. Oesterley, Romulus, App., 43; J. C. Harris, Nights with Uncle Remus, xix.

^{page 503 note 1} L. Sudre, Les Sources du Roman de Renart, p. 226, Paris, 1893.

^{page 503 note 2} H. Weber, Indische Studien, iii, 369 (1855).

^{page 503 note 3} Gelbhaus, Ueber Stoffe Altdeutscher Poesie, p. 39, Berlin, 1887. R. Basset (Rev. des trad. pop., xxi, 300) cites an analogous Arabic tale, “Le renard et la hyène,” Meidani, Proverbes (6), t. ii, p. 7, but I have been unable to find the story.

^{page 503 note 4} K. Krohn, Bär (Wolf) und Fuchs, pp. 41, 42, Helsingfors, 1888. See the fable of fox and goat well known in fable literature, ancient and modern, the Indian tale of hare and lion and the lion's shadow in the well (Pantsch., i, 8, Hitapodesa, ii, 11), and the analogous modern Indian version where jackals take the place of the hare (Old Deccan Days), the Indian tale of the elephant whom the hare leads to mistake his own shadow in the well (Pantsch., ii, 226), and the Arabic tale, cited in the note above, where the man finds a door opening into a subterranean paradise. Cf. also the Greek and Indian versions of the fable of Dog and Shadow.

^{page 504 note 1} A. Blumenthal, Rabbi Meir, p. 98, Frankfort, 1888.

^{page 504 note 2} A. Blumenthal, op. cit., p. 100.

^{page 505 note 1} A. Blumenthal, op. cit., p. 101. Gelbhaus, op. cit., p. 39.

^{page 505 note 2} See, however, no. 4, Man and serpent; no. 20, churl and bird.

^{page 506 note 1} Cf. G. Paris, Le roman de Renard … Repr. from Journal des Savants, 1895.

^{page 506 note 2} L'Abstemius, Hecatomythion secundum, no. 15, Venice, 1499.

^{page 506 note 3} G. Faerno, Centum Fabulœ …, p. 49, London, 1672.

^{page 506 note 4} Fables Turques, trad. par J. —A. Decourdemanche.

^{page 506 note 5} Lenoble, Oeuvres, t. xiv, p. 515.

^{page 507 note 1} Fables of Æsop, and other Eminent Mythologists … by Sir Roger L'Estrange, Kt., Fab. 410, London, 1692.

^{page 507 note 2} S. Croxall, Fables of Æsop and others, no. 166, Boston, 1803.

^{page 507 note 3} Cf. the somewhat similar fable of Hare and Fox in the Syriac Fabeln des Sophos, no. 10 (ed. by J. Landsberger, Posen, 1859), and the one in the Fables of T. Bewick, p. 311, —, 1818, and in the French-German Esope-Esopus (ed. by Carl Mouton, Hamburg, 1750), and in the Fables of Æsop, no. 8, New York, 1865.

^{page 507 note 4} K. McKenzie, Publ. M. L. A., xxi, 226 ff.

^{page 507 note 5} J. Bédier, Les Fabliaux, 2d ed., p. 240, Paris, 1895.

^{page 508 note 1} K. Krohn, op. cit., pp. 41 ff.

^{page 508 note 2} P. Redonnel, Rev. des trad. pop., iii, 611 ff.; A. Gittée et J. Lemoine, op. cit.

^{page 508 note 3} J. Haltrich, Zur Volkskunde der Siebenbürger, ed. by Wolf, Wien, 1885. Numbers 1-9 deal with the exploits of fox and wolf. Most of the well known stories are grouped so as to form a kind of popular beast epic.

^{page 508 note 4} Cf. Servian tale cited above, p. 502; Arnaudin, Contes populaires recueillis dans la Grande-Lande, etc., p. 116, 1887; Hervieux, Les fabulistes latins, 2d ed., ii, 598; Exortœ Romuli anglici cunctis fabulœ.

^{page 508 note 5} N. Bozon, op. cit., pp. 64, 65, Zulu tale of hyena and bone; A. Seidel, Geschichten der Afrikaner, p. 267, Berlin, 1896, etc.

^{page 509 note 1} Cf. P. Sébillot, Le folk-lore de France, i, 27, Paris, 1904.

^{page 509 note 2} Such as the fables of dog in manger, tortoise and hare, and the like.

^{page 509 note 3} Another very important reason is that this tale is not included in the mediæval Phaedrus which served as the nucleus around which most of the later collections gathered.

^{page 509 note 4} For example notice the German version in the Lieder Saal of J. von Lassberg, where the story of fox and wolf appears in company with love debates, lovers' complaints and the like, also the version in the appendix to Boner's Fabeln (Germania, xxxiii, 257 ff.) where the author remarks,