The Young Man and the Swallow

The story appears only in Greek sources in ancient times and may have been invented to explain the proverb 'One swallow does not make a spring' (μία γὰρ χελιδὼν ἔαρ οὐ ποιεῖ), which is recorded in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (I.1098a18).

[1] Other instances of where fables appear to derive from proverbs include The Mountain in Labour, recorded by Phaedrus, and Jumping from the frying pan into the fire by Laurentius Abstemius.

Seeing an unusually early swallow fly by, the man concludes that spring has come and sells his cloak so as to use the proceeds to mend his fortune with a last bet.

Although the fable was translated into Latin prose during the 15th century,[2] it was not included in European vernacular collections of the time but begins to be recorded in the 16th.

Poetic versions are included in French in Les Fables d'Esope Phrygien, mises en Ryme Francoise (1542)[3] and in Latin by Hieronymus Osius (1564).