Have you read the essay by Rabbi Avraham ben HaRambam that I cited? He certainly doesn’t think that these are “fable”! But he doesn’t limit Chazal to literal meaning they way you seem to. His father clearly had the same approach, and Ramban also took a similar approach. That Rabbi Avraham’s essay is in the front of every copy of Ein Yaakov printed for hundreds of years shows that we have accepted it as the proper approach to midrash/aggadata.
Yes, but he certainly doesn’t throw it all into one big heap of fantasy he calls “holy books.”
Sam: Agreed, of course.