Aesop (Seventh- or sixth-century BCE; possibly legendary) Greek fabulist

Although the fables attributed to Aesop, such as “The Ant and the Grasshopper” and “The Tortoise and the Hare,” are as well known as any of Hans Christian Andersen's tales, little is known of this early poet or even whether he existed. Aesop was connected with the Greek island of Samos in some way, either by birth or later residence. The sources for Aesop's life are very late, written many centuries later, thus unreliable. One tale tells us that he was born mute but granted not only speech but also eloquence by the goddess Isis. Another dubious piece of information—dubious because it was recorded so many centuries later—is that Aesop was lame or hunchbacked. Robert Garland, in The Eye of the Beholder (1995:11), tenuously identified as Aesop a disfigured man in conversation with a fox on a charming red-figure drinking cup from the classical Greek period.