Once in a while, though, the fables recall for the listener historical events and the effect then is immediate. Consider the wrapper around the Mahabharata, a fratricidial war epic. The story is intricate -- if you aren't familiar with it, you can read online.
Arjuna and Krishna (descendants of Aryan settlers from Persia) made a warrior pact when they built the new city of Indraprastha. They burnt down the Khandava forest where native tribes (the Nagas) lived and butchered every animal that fled that forest. The Naga prince vowed revenge. When the Mahabharata war ended, with the entire Aryan race almost wiped out, Arjuna and his brothers retired to the forest, leaving Arjuna's grandson Parikshita to rule the land.
The Naga prince, remember, had vowed revenge on the Aryans. He killed Parikshita. Janameyajaya, Parikshita's son, became king and he vowed to avenge his father's death. This would have gone on forever, generation after generation of Aryans and Nagas fighting each other, had not Astika, the son of a Naga and an Aryan, brokered a peace.
Janamejaya was not at ease, having made peace with the man who killed his father. He asked to hear the entire story of his race and thence commenced the first narration of the Mahabharata. The epic tale of war, destruction and despair is actually the narrative that marks the beginning of an epoch of peace.
