Aesop (also spelled Æsop, from the Greek — AisÅpos), known only for the genre of fables ascribed to him, was by tradition a slave (δοÏλος) who was a contemporary of Croesus and Peisistratus in the mid-sixth century B.C.E. in ancient Greece. The various collections that go under the rubric "Aesop's Fables" are still taught as moral lessons and used as subjects for various entertainments, especially children's plays and cartoons. According to tradition he was at one point freed from slavery and eventually died at the hands of Delphians, but nothing is known about Aesop from credible records.