Fairy Tales, Folklore & Mythology Books

There was once, among the Banu Ozrah, a handsome and accomplished man, who was never a single day out of love, and it chanced that he became enamoured of a beauty of his own tribe and sent her many messages; but she ceased not to entreat him with cruelty and disdain; till, for stress of love and longing and desire and distraction, he fell sick of a sore sickness and took to his pillow and murdered... more...

Cinderella; or, the Glass Slipper. There once lived a gentleman, who, on becoming a widower, married a most haughty woman for his second wife. The lady had two daughters by a former marriage, equally proud and disagreeable as herself, while the husband had one daughter, of the sweetest temper and most angelic disposition, who was the complete counterpart of her late mother. No sooner was the wedding... more...

INTRODUCTION TO THEFIRST EDITION The favourable reception given to my volume of Russian Fairy Tales has encouraged me to follow it up with a sister volume of stories selected from another Slavonic dialect extraordinarily rich in folk-tales––I mean Ruthenian, the language of the Cossacks. Ruthenian is a language intermediate between Russian and Polish, but quite independent of both. Its territory... more...

INTRODUCTION TO "FAIRIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW" The fairy tale is a poetic recording of the facts of life, an interpretation by the imagination of its hard conditions, an effort to reconcile the spirit which loves freedom and goodness and beauty with its harsh, bare and disappointing conditions. It is, in its earliest form, a spontaneous and instinctive endeavor to shape the facts of the... more...

A FLOWER BOOK. When the snow lies thick on the ground and all the streams that babble in summer lie still in their houses of ice, you think, I daresay, that the flowers are asleep, and that nothing can wake them before the spring? But I know of a wood where the little elves and sprites and the delicate fairies dance in a ring in the moonlight, and I will tell you of what happens there at twelve... more...

WhenBetsinda held the RoseAnd the Ring decked Giglio’s fingerThackeray! ’twas sport to lingerWith thy wise, gay-hearted prose.Books were merry, goodness knows!When Betsinda held the Rose.Who but foggy drudglings dozeWhile Rob Gilpin toasts thy witches,While the Ghost waylays thy breeches,Ingoldsby? Such tales as thoseExorcised our peevish woesWhen Betsinda held the Rose.Realism, thou specious... more...

Preface Each Fairy Book demands a preface from the Editor, and these introductions are inevitably both monotonous and unavailing. A sense of literary honesty compels the Editor to keep repeating that he is the Editor, and not the author of the Fairy Tales, just as a distinguished man of science is only the Editor, not the Author of Nature. Like nature, popular tales are too vast to be the creation of a... more...

There was, many years ago, a gentleman who had a charming lady for his wife. They had one daughter only, who was very dutiful to her parents. But while she was still very young, her mamma died, to the grief of her husband and daughter. After a time, the little girl’s papa married another lady. Now this lady was proud and haughty, and had two grown-up daughters as disagreeable as herself; so the poor... more...

INTRODUCTION. While Prudy was in Indiana visiting the Cliffords, and in the midst of her trials with mosquitoes, she said one day,— “I wouldn’t cry, Aunt ’Ria, only my heart’s breaking. The very next person that ever dies, I wish they’d ask God to please stop sending these awful skeeters. I can’t bear ’em any longer, now, certainly.” There was a look of utter despair on Prudy’s... more...

EAST O' THE SUN AND WEST O' THE MOON Once on a time there was a poor woodcutter who had so many children that he had not much of either food or clothing to give them. Pretty children they all were, but the prettiest was the youngest daughter, who was so lovely there was no end to her loveliness. It was on a Thursday evening late in the fall of the year. The weather was wild and rough outside,... more...