The first specimen we have of an ordinary fable, _i.e._, of one in which
the interlocutors are lower animals, is found in Hesiod, who is placed
about a century after Homer. It runs thus:--

"Now I will tell the kings a fable, which they will understand of
themselves. Thus spake the hawk to the nightingale, whom he was carrying
in his talons high in air, 'Foolish creature! why dost thou cry out? One
much stronger than thou hath seized thee, though thou art a songster. I
can tear thee to pieces, or let thee go at my pleasure.'"

But fables do not come fully under our view until they are connected
with the name of Æsop, who is said to have introduced them into Greece.
In general his fables pretend to nothing more than an illustration of
proverbial wisdom, but in some cases they proceed a step farther, and
show the losses and disappointments which result from a neglect of
prudent considerations. It cannot be denied that there is something
fanciful and amusing in these fables, still there is not much in them to
excite laughter--they are not sufficiently direct or pungent for that.
The losses or disappointments mentioned, or implied, give a certain
exercise to the feelings of opposition in the human breast, and if they
are supposed to be such as could not easily have been foreseen, we
should regard the narratives as humorous. But this is scarcely the
case; the mishaps arise simply and directly from the situations, and
are related with a view to the inculcation of truth, rather than the
exhibition of error. Hence the basis is different from that in genuine
humour, and the complication is small. Still the object evidently was to
allure men into the paths of wisdom through the pleasure grounds of
imagination.

Addison has justly observed that fables were the first kind of humour.