The instrument played by the fisherman varies over the ages in the telling. In the Greek it is a reeded pipe (αὐλος), rather like the chanter of a bagpipe. In William Caxton’s collection of fables it is indeed rendered as a bagpipe,[3] while in the Neo-Latin of Pantaleon Candidus and Hieronymus Osius it is a tibia, which the illustrator to the latter author makes a trumpet.[4] In La Fontaine’s French version the instrument is referred to as a ‘musette’ which, since his fable is titled “The Fishes and the Shepherd who Played the Flute” (Les poissons et le berger qui joue de la flûte, X.10), must refer to the old piccolo oboe.