The Wolf and the Crane is a fable attributed to Aesop that has several eastern analogues. Similar stories have a lion instead of a wolf, and a stork, heron or partridge takes the place of the crane. The fable and its alternative versions A feeding wolf got a small bone stuck in his throat and, in terrible pain, begged the other animals for help, promising a reward. At last the Crane agreed to try and, putting its long bill down the Wolf's throat, loosened the bone and took it out. But when the Crane asked for his reward, the Wolf replied, "You have put your head inside a wolf’s mouth and taken it out again in safety; that ought to be reward enough for you." In early versions, where Phaedrus has a crane, Babrius has a heron, but a wolf is involved in both. The story is very close in detail to the Javasakuna Jataka in the Buddhist scriptures. In this it is a woodpecker that dislodges the bone from a lion's throat, having first taken the precaution of propping its mouth open with a stick. On testing his gratitude later, the woodpecker is given the same answer as the wolf's and reflects on the wisdom of avoiding future harm through association with the violent: From the ignoble hope not to obtain The due requital of good service done, From bitter thought and angry word refrain, But haste the presence of the wretch to shun. A Jewish Midrash version, dating from the 1st century CE, tells how an Egyptian partridge extracts a thorn from the tongue of a lion. Its reward is similar to the other retellings. Another of this fable's earliest applications was at the beginning of the Roman emperor Hadrian's reign (117–138 CE), when Joshua ben Hananiah skilfully made use of the Babrius variant involving a wolf and a heron in order to dissuade the Jewish people from rebelling against Rome and once more putting their heads into the lion's jaws. It is notable that both Asian versions are given a political application. This is equally true of John Lydgate's 15th century retelling of Isopes Fabules, titled 'How the Wolf deceived the Crane'. The crane there is described as a surgeon engaged to perform a delicate operation and then deceived out of his fee. Lydgate goes on to draw the wider lesson of how a tyrannous aristocracy oppresses