Mishlei Shu’alim [“Fox Fables”: Hebrew version of Aesop’s Fables]

BERECHIAH BEN NATRONAI HANAKDAN.

Typographia Universitatis

Prague

1661

With engraved frontispiece of the Animal Kingdom. Title in red and black. Latin and Hebrew on facing pages.

Vinograd, Prague 443

Berechiah (end 12th-13th century) at different times lived in Normandy and England. Berechiah's most celebrated work is Mishlei Shu'alim, in which he made use of the French fable collection Ysopet by Marie de France (c. 1170) and the lost Latin translation of Aesop, Romulus. This European Aesopian tradition was married to the Biblical and Talmudic tradition, with the result that the animals converse in a Biblical Hebrew interspersed with Talmudic quotations.