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Collections of Aesop’s fables have been read since ancient times and belong to the most influential works in world literature. They have been translated into many languages and are still used in schools today. A first Swedish collection of fables was compiled in the early 17th century and played an important part in Swedish efforts to implement Lutheran Reformation. The scholarly discussion about confessionalization in Sweden is, of course, dominated by Luther's Little Catechism, which was aimed at children and uneducated adults. I want to supplement that discussion by looking at the significance of Aesop’s fables for the confessionalization process in Sweden (Zellén 2005), and more precisely at the role of animals, especially birds, in them. The translation of Hundrade Esopi fabler as an important link between the German and Swedish reformation was published in Stockholm by Anund Olufsson in 1603. It is based on the German version of Nathan Chytraeus from 1571, also known as Luther’s Aisopos. Martin Luther was a great admirer of Aisopo’s fables and assigned them a status second only to that of the Bible. Luther translated his own fables and strongly supported their use in Lutheran schools. Collections of entertaining texts, such as Aesop’s fables, were commonly used in the early modern school to connect teaching with entertainment. This concept was summarized by the formula Ernst und Scherz – jest and earnest – (Curtius 1984), and from that perspective, Aisopo’s fables serve as a significant example.  As early as in the first ancient collections of fables, only animals were protagonists and intermediaries of knowledge. But why choose animals for this purpose? In my paper I will specifically investigate birds because it seems that particularly after the Reformation, they served well as teachers in these texts. The question was initiated through my work with a Danish version of an oracle game book from the late 16th century (Ridder 2014). The socalled Bird Parliament is a genre which is connected with the Conference of the Birds, a literary form where birds debate virtues. The genre is linked to Aesop’s fables and developed into an oracle game text. The text was translated in Lutheran Denmark in the second half of the 16th century, and communicates virtues and vices in a playful way. Inspired by the Danish oracle text that teaches specific knowledge through animals ‐ mainly birds ‐ I want to explore how playful learning is realized with the help of Aesop’s fables. The bird stories in the Swedish translation of Hundrade Esopi fabler show an understanding of the intersection of learning and play. The didactic intention of the work as a whole is based on Erasmus Alberus’s model of “learning through pictures” (Lehre durch Bilder), which he describes in his fable collection. The model is included in the Chytraeus fable book and therefore also in the Swedish translation. The aim is to describe, from a historical perspective, a concept of playful literary education, which is, with few exceptions, a yet unexplored topic (Kaulen 2009).

Hundrade Esopi fabler, någre aff D. M. Luthero, somblighe aff Mathesio, och en deel aff Nathanæle Chytráeo, på det tyska språket tilhopadragne. Ithem Esopi leffuarne, aff Erasmo Albero beskiffuit. Sampt D. M: Lutheri förspråk om thene lille boks nytta, och hennes rätta bruk. Ungdomen uthi wårt kära fädernesland Swerige til öffning, rättelse och lärdom. Förswendskadhe aff Nicolao Balk Stockholmense. Anund Olufsson 1603.

Bröndum‐Nielsen, J. (1917). Ed. Lycke Bogen. En lustig selskabs bog. Kopenhagen.

Kaulen, H. (2009). Spielmethoden ohne Spieltheorie? Zur Geschichte und aktuellen Konjunktur des Spielbegriffs in der Literaturdidaktik. In: Literatur als Spiel. T. Anz & H. Kaulen (eds). Berlin und München: De Gruyter, 579‐600.

Curtius, H.R. (1984). Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter. 10. ed. Bern & München: Francke.

Ridder, I. (2014) Das Losbuch Ett litet Tidhfördriff des Grubenschreibers Gisle Jacobsson und das mittelalterliche Dobbelspiel. In: Sport und Spiel bei den Germanen. Nordeuropa von der römischen Kaiserzeit bis zum Mittelalter. Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA), M. Teichert (ed). Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter 2014, 245‐306.

Zillén, E. (2005). Den första svenskspråkiga fabelsamlingen som konfessionaliseringsprojekt. Samlaren 126, 5–50.