Fabliaux, a species of metrical tales of a light and satirical nature in vogue widely in France during the 12th and 13th centuries; many of the stories were of Oriental origin, but were infused with the French spirit of the times; La Fontaine, Boccaccio, and Chaucer drew freely on them; they are marked by all the vivacity and perspicuity, if also lubricity, of their modern successors in the French novel and comic drama.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Fable of the Bees * Fabre, Jean