The Bear and the Gardener

The Bear and the Gardener is a fable of eastern origin that warns against making foolish friendships. There are several variant versions, both literary and oral, across the world and its folk elements are classed as Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 1586. The La Fontaine version has been taken as demonstrating various philosophical lessons.

The story was introduced to western readers in La Fontaine's Fables (VIII.10). Though L'Ours et l'amateur des jardins is sometimes translated as "The bear and the amateur gardener", the true meaning is 'the garden lover'. It relates how a solitary gardener encounters a lonely bear and they decide to become companions. One of the bear's duties is to keep the flies off his friend when he takes a nap. Unable to drive off a persistent fly, the bear seizes a paving stone to crush it and kills the gardener as well.

Several lines occurring in the poem are taken as its morals. Midway there is the statement 'In my opinion it's a golden rule/Better be lonely than be with a fool', which the rest of the story bears out. The summing up at the end carries the commentary given by eastern authors that it is better to have a wise enemy than a foolish friend. The fable has given to the French language the idiom le pavé de l'ours (the bear's paving stone) and, following the Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov's version, to Russian medvezhya usluga (a bear's service) — both used for any ill-considered action with an unfortunate result. La Fontaine is considered to have been illustrating the Stoic precept that there should be measure in everything, including the making of friends. In terms of practical philosophy, the story also illustrates the important distinction that the bear fails to realise between the immediate good, in this case keeping the flies off a friend, and the ultimate good of safeguarding his welfare.

The story gained currency in England from the 18th century on through translations or imitations of La Fontaine. One of its earliest appearances was in Robert Dodsley's Select fables of Esop and other fabulists (1764), where it is given the title "The Hermit and the Bear" and a milder ending. In this version a hermit has done the bear a good turn; later still this was identified with taking a thorn from its paw, drawing on the story of Androcles and the Lion. Serving the hermit afterwards out of gratitude, the bear strikes him in the face when driving off a fly, and the two then part. It was this version that was taken up in early 19th century rhyming editions for children. Among them are Mary Anne Davis' Fables in Verse: by Aesop, La Fontaine, and others, first published about 1818, and Jefferys Taylor's Aesop in Rhyme (1820). Krylov also used the title "The Hermit and the Bear" in his imitation of La Fontaine's fable (1809), but retained the usual fatal ending. Later in the century the origin of the story was forgotten in England and it was taken as one of Aesop's Fables.

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