it did so into three parts, tore off the wolf’s head, just as the lion tore the donkey to pieces in Aesop’s fable. Rumi's speciality, however, is always to offer an explanation of his actors' motives. In this case the lion explains that it is an act of grace for him to do so since the wolf did not recognise superiority when he saw it. 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 allows Rumi to conclude that we are lucky to be living now, with the examples of past generations to guide us. Rumi’s fox then worships at the feet of the lion, addressing him with the words "O king of the world" and is duly rewarded for this devotion with everything that he had resigned to the divine king. Much the same interpretation was given to the tale by Rumi's English contemporary, Odo of Cheriton, in the Latin work known as Parabolae. For him too the lion is a symbol of God and his actions are interpreted as an expression of divine justice. Odo explains that the lion punished the wolf, as God did Adam, for the sin of disobedience. The moral of the story is to learn from this example to show reverence to God, just as the fox learned from the wolf’s punishment. 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. Other related Eastern fables There is a close family resemblance between fables where the lion takes all because he can and fables where an arbiter takes advantage of his powerful position, and indeed both are type 51 in the Aarne–Thompson classification system. The 10th-century Arabic Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity tells one such arbitration fable, said there to be of Indian origin. Here a group of foxes are sharing a dead camel. They cannot decide how to divide it among themselves and persuade a passing wolf to make a just division. At first the wolf begins to do this, but on further consideration he decides to