Fairy Tales, Folklore & Mythology Books

A STORY In the garden all the apple-trees were in blossom. They had hastened to bring forth flowers before they got green leaves, and in the yard all the ducklings walked up and down, and the cat too: it basked in the sun and licked the sunshine from its own paws. And when one looked at the fields, how beautifully the corn stood and how green it shone, without comparison! and there was a twittering and... more...

or the last time, for the present, I give the children of the British Isles a selection of Fairy Tales once or still existing among them. The story store of Great Britain and Ireland is, I hope, now adequately represented in the four volumes which have won me so many little friends, and of which this is the last. My collections have dealt with the two folk-lore regions of these Isles on different... more...

INTRODUCTION. The following treatise is to some extent a re-statement and partly an amplification of a theory I have elsewhere advanced. But as that theory, although it has been advocated by several writers, especially during the past half-century, is not familiar to everybody, some remarks of an explanatory nature are necessary. And if this explanation assumes a narrative form, not without a tinge of... more...

CHAPTER I DOROTHY AND THE ADMIRAL The Blue Admiral Inn stood on the edge of the shore, with its red brick walls, and its gabled roof, and the old willow-trees that overhung it, all reflected in the quiet water as if the harbor had been a great mirror lying upon its back in the sun. This made it a most attractive place to look at. Then there were crisp little dimity curtains hanging in the windows of... more...

PREFACE Many years ago my friend and publisher, Mr. Charles Longman, presented me with Le Cabinet des Fées (‘The Fairy Cabinet’). This work almost requires a swinging bookcase for its accommodation, like the Encyclopædia Britannica, and in a revolving bookcase I bestowed the volumes. Circumstances of an intimately domestic character, ‘not wholly unconnected,’ as Mr. Micawber might have said,... more...

THE CELESTIAL SISTERS. Waupee, or the White Hawk, lived in a remote part of the forest, where animals abounded. Every day he returned from the chase with a large spoil, for he was one of the most skillful and lucky hunters of his tribe. His form was like the cedar; the fire of youth beamed from his eye; there was no forest too gloomy for him to penetrate, and no track made by bird or beast of any kind... more...

THOUGHT CAPACITY IN ANIMALS It was in the year 1904 that the first experiments towards understanding an animal's ability to think were brought into public light. Wilhelm von Osten then introduced his stallion Hans II to all who seemed interested in the subject, and the most diametrically opposed opinions were soon rife with regard to the abilities of this horse, to which von Osten maintained he... more...

THE OLD, OLD STORIES Here they are again, the old, old stories, the very best; dear Cinderella, wicked old Bluebeard, tiny Thumbling, beautiful Beauty and the ugly Beast, and a host of others. But the old stories, I may tell you, are always new, and always must be so, because there are new children to read them every day, and to these, of course, these old tales might have been written yesterday. But... more...

PREFACE Last year, in giving the young ones a volume of English Fairy Tales, my difficulty was one of collection. This time, in offering them specimens of the rich folk-fancy of the Celts of these islands, my trouble has rather been one of selection. Ireland began to collect her folk-tales almost as early as any country in Europe, and Croker has found a whole school of successors in Carleton, Griffin,... more...

SPANIEL AND NEWFOUNDLAND DOGS.A French writer has boldly affirmed, that with the exception of women there is nothing on earth so agreeable, or so necessary to the comfort of man, as the dog. This assertion may readily be disputed, but still it will be allowed that man, deprived of the companionship and services of the dog, would be a solitary and, in many respects, a helpless being. Let us look at the... more...