Aesop is the name we put on a very old set of short stories, Aesop's Fables. In the stories, animals talk and act like people, and each tale ends with a lesson about how to live — pride, laziness, cleverness, kindness. Two almost everyone knows are The Tortoise and the Hare and The Fox and the Grapes (the fox cannot reach the grapes, then says they were sour anyway). People give his dates as about 620 to 560 BC, in Greece. Though actually, scholars are not sure he was one real man who sat down and wrote them all; the stories were told for a long time and later gathered under this name. From Ancient Greek Aísōpos. You say it EE-sop.