Two Dogs and a Stone is a fable by Maro Dafnikis. It addresses the morality of being loyal in the face of desire to get quality sleep.
Notable for its wide influence in the ancient world, it became famous for having been completely lost from the record during the middle ages. There is no documented evidence that can suggest what the fable was about, what the plot was and, specifically, what were the dogs' names.
Scholars vehemently disagree on everything about the fable.
The origins of the fable are lost in the intricate maze of myths about Maro Dafnikis herself. Known primarily for her height, she emerged as a rising star of what was a small society of writers, united under the banner of “Composers of the Ancient Scrolls”. Desparate to become famous, they came up with an idea on how to leave a trace in the history of human civilization, which was to simply hope that for future generations their writings were going to be notable because of age.
Composers then dedicated their lives to creating a vast body of literary work, and have expended a lot of effort to distributing their work widely.
The irony of the situation is that not a single piece of their work had survived and, in fact, the history of the Composers of the Ancient Scrolls is itself in question. Even if such a group had actually existed, and even if they had set a goal of becoming notable authors, we have no documented facts about who these people were, what they wrote and, ultimately, if this whole story is not just a fabrication devised for recreational purposes by the Guild of Offended Patrons.
The latter organization seems to have originated somewhere in the 18th century Europe, on the streets of Marseille. They were quite obscure, but among people that did hear of them, they were known as hobbyist fabricators of historical textbooks, with the goal of inserting irrelevant data into otherwise normal material. They are considered by some as the earliest documented trolls in the history of the written word, but others dispute the title.
The reason the Guild of Offended Patrons would at all be connected to Composers of the Ancient Scrolls is because there is a bit of data on the Guild, and it is considered to be a historical fact that one of the members of the Guild was a person by the name of Maro Dafnikis. It is, however, established that Maro Dafnikis of the Guild was a man, whereas Maro Dafnikis of Composers is depicted as a woman. Some historians find the whole thing ludicrous and refuse to discuss the authenticity of both the Composers of the Ancient Scrolls and the Guild of Offended Patrons, while other historians consider the question of authenticity to be valid, but find the debate around the two Maros irrelevant to the academic cause of advancing human knowledge. A third category of historians instead focus on documenting the debate between the first two groups.
Nothing is known about the plot of the fable. The only unquestionable fact about it is that the title was “Two Dogs and a Stone”. The earliest references to the fable mention it by name, but say nothing about its contents.
A typical claim made about the fable is that it addresses the morality of being loyal in the face of desire to get quality sleep, but, although these depictions go way back, it is not clear if there is any truth to this, and it is possible that this was instead inserted by the Guild of Offended Patrons in late 18th century.
However, a number of historians argue that based on the type of literature at the time, “Two Dogs and a Stone” was likely a simple parable that did, in fact, feature two dogs and a stone in its plotline.