Lion's share

[6] The number of differing variations circulating by the time of the Middle Ages is witnessed by the fact that Marie de France included two in her 12th century Ysopet.

On one occasion, she recounts, the lion is joined by officers of his court, a wild ox and a wolf, who divide the catch into three and invite their lord to apportion it.

[9] The early 19th century writer Jefferys Taylor also retold the fable in terms of a commercial enterprise in his poem "The Beasts in Partnership": This firm once existed, I'd have you to know, Messrs Lion, Wolf, Tiger, Fox, Leopard & Co; These in business were join'd, and of course 'twas implied, They their stocks should unite, and the profits divide.

[10] In the extended Greek telling of Babrius it is a lion and a wild donkey who go hunting together, the first outstanding for strength, the second for speed.

The lion divides their take into three, awarding himself the first because he is king of the beasts, the second because they are 'equal' partners, and suggesting that the ass runs away quickly rather than dare to touch the third.

This variation is given a separate number (149) in the Perry Index and is the one followed by such Neo-Latin writers as Gabriele Faerno[12] and Hieronymus Osius[13] and in English by Geoffrey Whitney.

When the fox was tested in the same way, he did not even retain a morsel for himself, explaining (as in the Greek version) that he had learned wisdom from the wolf's fate and thanking the lion for giving him the privilege of going second.

This reading of the fable therefore gained currency in Western Europe too, both via the preachers who used Odo's book as a source of stories for their sermons and through translations of it into French, Spanish and Welsh.

(In this case, however, the foxes appeal to the lion who decides in their favour and kills the wolf and returns the camel to them.

As well as being a condemnation of the greed that leads to strife, the tale takes a sceptical view of how the powerful frame the law to suit themselves, concluding with the satirical verse: Just as, when strife arises among men, They seek an arbiter: he's leader then; Their wealth decays and the king's coffers gain.

In that the tale deals with outside arbitration, however, it has certain points in common with another of Aesop's fables, The Lion, the Bear and the Fox, in which the first two beasts simultaneously attack a kid and then fight over their spoil.