A fable was a type of story written by Humans.
As a child, Christopher Pike heard a fable in which a person was punished in a hellish environment. Decades later, as a prisoner of the Talosians, he was forced to experience this event as punishment for his disobedience. The Talosian warned Pike, that from the deeper parts of his mind, there were even more unpleasant things and, if he continued his disobedience, he would experience one of them. (TOS: "The Cage", "The Menagerie, Part II")