Open almost any contemporary children’s Aesop and each fable ends with a small italicized moral: “slow and steady wins the race,” “do not count your chickens before they hatch,” “a friend in need is a friend indeed.” These tags feel ancient. They are not. They were added in the late 16th century by European editors who felt the original Greek texts were “incomplete” without them.

The original collection (such as we have it, in 6th-century BCE fragments and the much later but more complete Babrius and Phaedrus editions) ends each fable cold, with no commentary. The fable just stops. The reader is left to make of it what they will.

The difference between these two reading experiences is much larger than it sounds.

With the moral tag

The fable becomes a delivery vehicle for a lesson. The story is a means; the moral is the end. The child learns to read fables instrumentally — what is this trying to teach me? — which makes the experience of reading them feel like school.

Without the moral tag

The fable becomes a small mystery. The tortoise wins. So what? The boy who cried wolf is eaten. So what? The child is now in the position of having to decide what the story means, which is exactly the position a folk tale wants its reader in. The story works on the child without the child being told it is working.

Aesop without morals is significantly more memorable, more rereadable, and more thought-provoking than Aesop with morals. We have tested this informally with our own children and with the children of friends. The reaction is consistent.

Five fables to try without the tag

1. The Hare and the Tortoise. Read it. Stop. Let the silence sit. The child will eventually say something. Whatever the child says is the right reading.

2. The Crow and the Pitcher. A thirsty crow finds a pitcher with a little water in it, too low to reach. The crow drops pebbles into the pitcher until the water rises. End. The original has no moral. Modern editions add “necessity is the mother of invention” — which spoils the strangeness of the crow’s patience.

3. The Ant and the Grasshopper. Surprisingly cruel in the original Greek (the grasshopper dies). Most modern children’s editions soften this to “the ant lets the grasshopper in.” Both versions work; the original is more honest, the modern is more bearable. We recommend the original for 8+, the softened for under 6.

4. The Wind and the Sun. A contest to remove a traveler’s cloak. The sun wins by warmth, not force. End. No moral tag needed — the child will get it. Probably the most read-aloud-able fable in the corpus.

5. The Lion and the Mouse. A small mouse, spared by a lion, later saves the lion from a hunter’s net. The mutual obligation is the point. The “no act of kindness is wasted” moral, while technically correct, narrows what the fable can mean.

A practical note

If you have a contemporary Aesop with morals, you can simply not read the moral line. Cover it with your thumb. The fable, read this way, becomes a different story.

For an Aesop without morals, the Lloyd W. Daly translation (Aesop Without Morals, 1961) is the academic standard. For a children’s edition: the Michael Hague illustrated Aesop’s Fables (Henry Holt, 2010) keeps the moral tags but prints them small enough to easily skip.

— Sources: Daly, L.W., Aesop Without Morals, Yoseloff, 1961; Perry, B.E., Babrius and Phaedrus, Loeb Classical Library, 1965.