The fables of Aesop were probably part of an oral history—stories that were told aloud. About 2,000 years ago the Roman writer Phaedrus wrote down some of the fables. Later the stories were translated into other languages. An early English-language version of the stories was published in 1692 by Roger L'Estrange. The fables familiar to readers today were translated into English during the 1800s by the Rev. George Fyler Townsend. Most of the fables are about animals with human characteristics, and most end with a moral, or an explicit statement of the lesson that the fable teaches.

"The Hare and the Tortoise" is one of the most familiar of Aesop's fables. The swift hare makes fun of the slow-moving tortoise. The tortoise then challenges the hare to a race. The hare immediately runs far ahead of the tortoise, stops, and takes a nap. He wakes up later, just in time to see the tortoise, which had never stopped moving, crossing the finish line ahead of him. The moral of the fable is “Slow but steady wins the race.”