Fables passing under the name of Æsop were current and
popular in Athens during the most brilliant period of its literary
history.  Æsop was born in Phyrgia Major about 620 B.C.  Herodotus mentions him as having been a slave in the service of Iadmon, who eventually gave him his liberty.

Plutarch speaks of  Æsop as being present at the court of Croesus, by whom he was sent to distribute a sum of money among the
Delphians.  A dispute arose, and Æsop, saying that they were
unworthy to receive the money, refused to give it.  The enraged Delphians got up a charge of sacrilege against him, and he was thrown from a precipice and killed.

The Delphians were afterward visited by plagues, which they
regarded as punishment by the gods for his unjust death.  They
accordingly offered a sum of money, as compensation for the injury, to any connections of Æsop who might be living.  A statue by the hand of the celebrated sculptor Lysippuys was erected in memory of Æsop at Athens.

Among the earliest known collections of fables bearing the name of Æsop were those of Phaedrus, written in Latin, and Babrius,
written in Greek.¹

The porch of the Medeival cathedral at Amiens in France has two of Æsop's fables carved in stone: the wolf and the swan, and the
crow and the fox.
Like the legends of Alexander and Aristotle portrayed in the
Medeival cathedrals, these were used to illustrate a moral truth.²