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The Violet Fairy Bookby Andrew LangPREFACE
THE Editor takes this opportunity to repeat what he has often said before, that he is not the author of the stories in the Fairy Books; that he did not invent them `out of his own head.' He is accustomed to being asked, by ladies, `Have you written anything else except the Fairy Books?' He is then obliged to explain that he has not written the Fairy Books, but, save these, has written almost everything else, except hymns, sermons, and dramatic works.
The stories in this Violet Fairy Book, as in all the others of the series, have been translated out of the popular traditional tales in a number of different languages. These stories are as old as anything that men have invented. They are narrated by naked savage women to naked savage children. They have been inherited by our earliest civilised ancestors, who really believed that beasts and trees and stones can talk if they choose, and behave kindly or unkindly. The stories are full of the oldest ideas of ages when science did not exist, and magic took the place of science. Anybody who has the curiosity to read the `Legendary Australian Tales,' which Mrs. Langloh Parker has collected from the lips of the Australian savages, will find that these tales are closely akin to our own. Who were the first authors of them nobody knows -- probably the first men and women Eve may have told these tales to amuse Cain and Abel. As people grew more civilised and had kings and queens, princes and princesses, these exalted persons generally were chosen as heroes and heroines. But originally the characters were just `a man,' and `a woman,' and `a boy,' and `a girl,' with crowds of beasts, birds, and fishes, all behaving like human beings. When the nobles and other people became rich and educated, they forgot the old stories, but the country people did not, and handed them down, with changes at pleasure, from generation to generation. Then learned men collected and printed the country people's stories, and these we have translated, to amuse children. Their tastes remain like the tastes of their naked ancestors, thousands of years ago, and they seem to like fairy tales better than history, poetry, geography, or arithmetic, just as grown-up people like novels better than anything else.
This is the whole truth of the matter. I have said so before, and I say so again. But nothing will prevent children from thinking that I invented the stories, or some ladies from being of the same opinion. But who really invented the stories nobody knows; it is all so long ago, long before reading and writing were invented. The first of the stories actually written down, were written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, or on Babylonian cakes of clay, three or four thousand years before our time.
Of the stories in this book, Miss Blackley translated `Dwarf Long Nose,' `The Wonderful Beggars,' `The Lute Player,' `Two in a Sack,' and `The Fish that swam in the Air.' Mr. W. A. Craigie translated from the Scandinavian, `Jasper who herded the Hares.' Mrs. Lang did the rest.
Some of the most interesting are from the Roumanion, and three were previously published in the late Dr. Steere's `Swahili Tales.' By the permission of his representatives these three African stories have here been abridged and simplified for children. A TALE OF THE TONTLAWALD
LONG, long ago there stood in the midst of a country covered with lakes a vast stretch of moorland called the Tontlawald, on which no man ever dared set foot. From time to time a few bold spirits had been drawn by curiosity to its borders, and on their return had reported that they had caught a glimpse of a ruined house in a grove of thick trees, and round about it were a crowd of beings resembling men, swarming over the grass like bees. The men were as dirty and ragged as gipsies, and there were besides a quantity of old women and half-naked children.
One night a peasant who was returning home from a feast wandered a little farther into the Tontlawald, and came back with the same story. A countless number of women and children were gathered round a huge fire, and some were seated on the ground, while others danced strange dances on the smooth grass. One old crone had a broad iron ladle in her hand, with which every now and then she stirred the fire, but the moment she touched the glowing ashes the children rushed away, shrieking like night owls, and it was a long while before they ventured to steal back. And besides all this there had once or twice been seen a little old man with a long beard creeping out of the forest, carrying a sack bigger than himself. The women and children ran by his side, weeping and trying to drag the sack from off his back, but he shook them off, and went on his way. There was also a tale of a magnificent black cat as large as a foal, but men could not believe all the wonders told by the peasant, and it was difficult to make out what was true and what was false in his story. However, the fact remained that strange things did happen there, and the King of Sweden, to whom this part of the country belonged, more than once gave orders to cut down the haunted wood, but there was no one with courage enough to obey his commands. At length one man, bolder than the rest, struck his axe into a tree, but his blow was followed by a stream of blood and shrieks as of a human creature in pain. The terrified woodcutter fled as fast as his legs would carry him, and after that neither orders nor threats would drive anybody to the enchanted moor.
A few miles from the Tontlawald was a large village, where dwelt a peasant who had recently married a young wife. As not uncommonly happens in such cases, she turned the whole house upside down, and the two quarrelled and fought all day long.
By his first wife the peasant had a daughter called Elsa, a good quiet girl, who only wanted to live in peace, but this her stepmother would not allow. She beat and cuffed the poor child from morning till night, but as the stepmother had the whip-hand of her husband there was no remedy.
For two years Elsa suffered all this ill-treatment, when one day she went out with the other village children to pluck strawberries. Carelessly they wandered on, till at last they reached the edge of the Tontlawald, where the finest strawberries grew, making the grass red with their colour. The children flung themselves down on the ground, and, after eating as many as they wanted, began to pile up their baskets, when suddenly a cry arose from one of the older boys:
`Run, run as fast as you can! We are in the Tontlawald!' Contents:
A TALE OF THE TONTLAWALD
THE WOODCUTTER IN THE TONTLAWALD
The Tontlawald
Now The OLD MAN Disappeared after Dinner
THE FINEST LIAR IN THE WORLD
THE BEST BEE
THE STORY OF THREE WONDERFUL BEGGARS
THE FAIRIES CATCH THE BABY
THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN SOOTHES THE SERPENT-KING
SCHIPPEITARO
DEFEAT OF THE MOUNTAIN-SPIRIT BY THE YOUTH AND SCHIPPEITARO
THE THREE PRINCES AND THEIR BEASTS (LITHUANIAN FAIRY TALE)
The LION & THE FOX COME TO THE RESCUE
The faithful Beasts wept round The dead body of The Prince
The Witch and The Prince
THE GOAT'S EARS OF THE EMPEROR TROJAN
THE NINE PEA-HENS AND THE GOLDEN APPLES
UnDER The GOLDEn APPLE TREE
The Dragon flies off with the Empress.
THE LUTE PLAYER
THE LUTE PLAYER
THE GRATEFUL PRINCE
The Prince meets a Strange man in the wood
HOW THE BLACK COW WAS TRICKED
The FLIGHT ALONG THE Hedge OF PEAS
DANGERS FOLLOWING
THE CHILD WHO CAME FROM AN EGG
Your heart is heavy with two sorrows
THE FAIRY AND DOTTERINE PASS UNSEEN THROUGH THE CAMP OF THE ENEMY
STAN BOLOVAN
STAN BOLOVAN MEETS HIS FAMILY
STAN BOLOVAN OUTWITS THE DRAGON
THE DRAGON ALARMED
THE TWO FROGS
THE STORY OF A GAZELLE
THE GAZELLE BRINGS THE DIAMOND TO THE SULTAN
THE GAZELLE BRINGS CLOTHES TO HIS MASTER
The Gazelle cuts off the Serpent's Heads
ThE GAZELLE
HOW A FISH SWAM IN THE AIR AND A HARE IN THE WATER.
TWO IN A SACK
Two Out of a Sack
IN FUTURE LEAVE THE STICK ALONE; TWO OUT OF THE SACK
THE ENVIOUS NEIGHBOUR
THE FAIRY OF THE DAWN
The EMPEROR Whose RIGhT eye LaUGHeD while his LeFT eye wept
PETRU HAS TO TURN BACK
THE BATTLE WITH THE WELWA IN THE COPPER WOOD
Among the Flowers were lovely maidens calling to him with soft voices
The Whirlwind seizes the wreath
PETRU WAKES THE GIANT UP}
MORNING-GLORY THE FAIRY OF THE DAWN
THE ENCHANTED KNIFE
The Princess at the curtain
THE ENCHANTED KNIFE
JESPER WHO HERDED THE HARES
A hare for a kiss
THE UNDERGROUND WORKERS
THE UNDERGROUND WORKERS
THE HISTORY OF DWARF LONG NOSE
JEM FOLLOWS THE OLD WOMAN
HANNAH DOES NOT RECOGNISE JEM
THE GOOSE FINDS THE MAGIC HERB
THE NUNDA, EATER OF PEOPLE
The Nunda, Eater of People
the PRince FinDs the Nunda
THE STORY OF HASSEBU
Hassebu to the Serpent-King
THE MAIDEN WITH THE WOODEN HELMET
THE IMPUDENT YOUNG MEN
THE GIRL WITH THE WOODEN HELMET
THE MONKEY AND THE JELLY-FISH
THE MONKEY BROUGHT TO OTOHIME
THE HEADLESS DWARFS
A DWARF WAS IN THE BELL
Hans fights the headless Dwarfs
THE YOUNG MAN WHO WOULD HAVE HIS EYES OPENED
What The Young Man Saw in The Wood
THE BOYS WITH THE GOLDEN STARS
The Stepmother digs a Grave for the Babies
The Boys With The Golden Stars
The Punishment of the Stepmother
THE FROG
THE WITCHES LAUGHING
THE PRINCESS WHO WAS HIDDEN UNDERGROUND
THE GIRL WHO PRETENDED TO BE A BOY
THE PRINCESS CHARGES THE LION
Fet-FRuneRs & ILiAne escpe from the Mother of the Genius
THE STORY OF HALFMAN
THE PRINCE WHO WANTED TO SEE THE WORLD
The Prince feeds the baby from his flask
FOR A MOMENT THE DOVE'S HEAD BECOMES THAT OF A BEAUTIFUL GIRL
VIRGILIUS THE SORCERER
VIRGILIUS AND THE EVIL SPIRIT
FEBILLA'S PUNISHMENT
THE COPPER HORSE
VIRGILIUS THE SORCERER CARRIES AWAY THE PRINCESS OF BABYLON
MOGARZEA AND HIS SON
MOGARZEA & HIS SON ``WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?''
The BOY PIPeS TO the Elves
MOGARZEA & HIS SON RETURN HOME |
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