The Pink Fairy Book

The Pink Fairy Book

Edited by Andrew Lang

All people in the world tell nursery tales to their children. The Japanese tell them, the Chinese, the Red Indians by their camp fires, the Eskimo in their dark dirty winter huts. The Kaffirs of South Africa tell them, and the modern Greeks, just as the old Egyptians did, when Moses had not been many years rescued out of the bulrushes. The Germans, French, Spanish, Italians, Danes, Highlanders tell them also, and the stories are apt to be like each other everywhere. A child who has read the Blue and Red and Yellow Fairy Books will find some old friends with new faces in the Pink Fairy Book, if he examines and compares. But the Japanese tales will probably be new to the young student; the Tanuki is a creature whose acquaintance he may not have made before. He may remark that Andersen wants to 'point a moral, ' as well as to 'adorn a tale; ' that he is trying to make fun of the follies of mankind, as they exist in civilised countries.

CONTENTS

Preface

• The Cat's Elopement
• How the Dragon Was Tricked
• The Goblin and the Grocer
• The House in the Wood
• Uraschimataro and the Turtle
• The Slaying of the Tanuki
• The Flying Trunk
• The Snow-man
• The Shirt-collar
• The Princess in the Chest
• The Three Brothers
• The Snow-queen
• The Fir-tree
• Hans, the Mermaid's Son
• Peter Bull
• The Bird 'Grip'
• Snowflake
• I Know What I Have Learned
• The Cunning Shoemaker
• The King Who Would Have a Beautiful Wife
• Catherine and Her Destiny
• How the Hermit Helped to Win the King's Daughter
• The Water of Life
• The Wounded Lion
• The Man Without a Heart
• The Two Brothers
• Master and Pupil
• The Golden Lion
• The Sprig of Rosemary
• The White Dove
• The Troll's Daughter
• Esben and the Witch
• Princess Minon-minette
• Maiden Bright-eye
• The Merry Wives
• King Lindorm
• The Jackal, the Dove, and the Panther
• The Little Hare
• The Sparrow with the Slit Tongue
• The Story of Ciccu
• Don Giovanni De La Fortuna