For this post, I chose to focus on one of the Aesop fables because they are in the public domain and have been translated and reinterpreted many times.  I was interested to learn what that would mean in terms of how audiobook producers might treat them.  Also, as a child, I had a collection of recordings by Boris Karloff, and one of them had the actor reading the fables.  The Oak and the Reeds was always one of my favorites.

For those not familiar with them, “Aesop’s Fables—also called the Aesopica—are a collection of stories designed to teach moral lessons [they are] credited to Aesop, a Greek slave and story-teller thought to have lived between 620 and 560 BCE …aphorisms such as ‘sour grapes’ and ‘a bird in the hand’ can be traced back to these cautionary tales” (Aesop). In the traditional telling of these fables, the last sentence is always reserved for the moral of the story.

Using LibriVox as my source, a simple key-word search for “Aesop” yielded ten results, and “Æsop” found one.  I listened to all of them and chose three for this post.  However, before we examine that audio, here is the complete text of The Oak & the Reeds from The Aesop for Children: with Pictures by Milo Winter.

The Aesop for Children: with Pictures by Milo Winter

A Giant Oak stood near a brook in which grew some slender Reeds. When the wind blew, the great Oak stood proudly upright with its hundred arms uplifted to the sky. But the Reeds bowed low in the wind and sang a sad and mournful song.

“You have reason to complain,” said the Oak. “The slightest breeze that ruffles the surface of the water makes you bow your heads, while I, the mighty Oak, stand upright and firm before the howling tempest.”

“Do not worry about us,” replied the Reeds. “The winds do not harm us. We bow before them and so we do not break. You, in all your pride and strength, have so far resisted their blows. But the end is coming.”

As the Reeds spoke a great hurricane rushed out of the north. The Oak stood proudly and fought against the storm, while the yielding Reeds bowed low. The wind redoubled in fury, and all at once the great tree fell, torn up by the roots, and lay among the pitying Reeds.

Better to yield when it is folly to resist, than to resist stubbornly and be destroyed. (Aesop)

Our first audio passage uses the text of The Oak & the Reeds from The Aesop for Children: with Pictures by Milo Winter but interestingly, does not credit that book. However, it does point the reader to this link http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19994 which is a Project Gutenberg asset.  There we find that Project Gutenberg does cite Milo Winter.

The reader for this recording is Claire Schreuder.  Ms. Schreuder does an able job with the text, but she sounds a bit tired toward the end.  She tries to make character voices for the oak and the reeds but doesn’t follow through on it.  What is interesting here is that she does a 6:15 minute recording without a break, and in it, she reads four different stories, with The Oak and the Reeds coming last.

Click to listen (fast forward to 4:54) (Schreuder)

Figure 2 Cover Art (LibriVox)

Reading for six minutes straight may not seem like a long time, but it is!  I did voiceover work for a living and use to volunteer to read newsprint to the hearing impaired. One of the things I learned was five minutes is about as much as you want to do in a single stretch in order to keep your voice flexible.  In other words, it is good to take frequent breaks when you need to read long passages.

This next recording is taken from the book Aesop in Rhyme and was written in 1820 by Jefferys Taylor.  An engraver by trade, Taylor wrote several children’s books, including these interpretations of the fables.  I found a digital copy of the text on the Internet Archive site.  The images below were captured from that source.  The first thing to note is that Taylor’s version of the fable is almost twice as long as the Winter’s one.  And he wrote it in a rhyming verse, which can be very tricky to recite and not have it sound sing-songy.

In this LibriVox audio recording, Noel Badrian reads.  Mister Badrian has a beautiful English accent, and there is a reediness to his tone, which is an asset as it helps to even the rhyme.  The quality of the audio is excellent, and Badrian does not embroider his delivery by making distinct character voices for the oak or the reeds; instead, he makes good use of pauses both to break up the rhyme and to allow for the character’s voices to translate naturally.  A visit to Badrian’s page reveals that he has recorded 833 selections for LibriVox, so while they might not refer to him as a professional voiceover artist, I would.  He has put in the bench time!

Engraving from Aesop in Rhyme, with some originals.		Click to listen. (Badrian)
Digital copy from the first edition of Aesop in rhyme, with some originals (Taylor and Aesop)	Digital copy from Aesop in rhyme, with some originals (Taylor and Aesop)

This last selection is a fascinating recording, in part, because the text has been transformed.  It runs 2.28 minutes; with the first fifteen seconds being the standard LibriVox disclaimer, the fable itself runs 45 seconds, and the rest is moral commentary.

In the previous iterations, the oak and the reeds live together, and it is only when the storm approaches that their survival strategies are revealed.  However, in this tale, the oak has already been struck down and is floating in a stream.  When it passes a reed that is unhurt, they strike up a conversation. The reed admonishes the fallen oak, advising, “I secure myself with a conduct the reverse of yours, instead of being stubborn and stiff, and confiding in my strength, I yield and bend to the blast and let it go over me, knowing how vain and fruitless it would be to resist” (Fables of Aesop and Others).

Click to listen. (Seaquill)

Cover art from Fables of Aesop and Others.

The “application” which follows, is even harder on the dying oak, accusing it of temerity and a weak understanding.  Then follows religious prescriptions to be persons of “quiet, still temper” so as to “allude the shocks or to receive them with the least detriment” (Fables of Aesop and Others).  The LibriVox editors give no additional indication who actually wrote this version of the fable, but from the language and the fact it is public domain, I would guess it comes from the late 1800s or early 1900s.  However, our reader Seaquill clearly had a greater comfort performing the beginning of the piece than they did the end.  They struggled with some of the sentence structure and sounded unsure about where to put the emphasis on certain words.

Practice is key when reading text that hails from a different era.  The meaning of words can change over time; some research is needed so the reader understands the text fully.  Humans are very good at hearing indecision in another’s voice.  As a reader, first, understand the text fully.  Then mark up the script so you know when to breathe.  And most importantly, never be afraid to take your time!

Bibliography

Aesop. “The Oak & the Reeds.” Aesop. The Aesop for Children: with Pictures by Milo Winter. New York: Rand, McNally & Co., 1919. eBook. <http://read.gov/aesop/011.html>.

Badrian, Noel. “The Oak and the Reed.” Æsop in Rhyme, with Some Originals. 2017. Digital Audio. <https://librivox.org/aesop-in-rhyme-with-some-originals-by-jefferys-taylor/>.

LibriVox. Fables of Aesop and Others. <https://ia802902.us.archive.org/12/items/fables_of_aesop_2003_librivox/fablesofaesop_2003.jpg>.

LibriVox. The Aesop for Children. <https://ia800708.us.archive.org/25/items/aesopforchildren_1308_librivox/Aesop_Children_1309.jpg>.

Schreuder, Claire. “The Oak and the Reeds.” The Aesop for Children. 2013. Digital Audio. <https://librivox.org/the-aesop-for-children-by-aesop/>.

Seaquill. “Fables of Aesop and Others.” 2020. Digital Recording. <https://librivox.org/fables-of-aesop-and-others-by-aesop/>.

Taylor, Jefferys, and Aesop. Aesop in Rhyme, with some originals. London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1828. Digital Copy. <https://archive.org/details/aesopinrhymewith00tayliala/page/2/mode/2up>.