The Green Fairy Book

The Green Fairy Book

Project Gutenberg's The Green Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang, Ed.
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Title: The Green Fairy Book
Author: Andrew Lang, Ed.
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The Green Fairy Book
Edited by Andrew Lang
To Stella Margaret Alleyne the Green Fairy Book is dedicated

To The Friendly Reader

This is the third, and probably the last, of the Fairy Books of many
colours. First there was the Blue Fairy Book; then, children, you asked
for more, and we made up the Red Fairy Book; and, when you wanted
more still, the Green Fairy Book was put together. The stories in all the
books are borrowed from many countries; some are French, some
German, some Russian, some Italian, some Scottish, some English, one
Chinese. However much these nations differ about trifles, they all agree
in liking fairy tales. The reason, no doubt, is that men were much like
children in their minds long ago, long, long ago, and so before they
took to writing newspapers, and sermons, and novels, and long poems,
they told each other stories, such as you read in the fairy books. They
believed that witches could turn people into beasts, that beasts could
speak, that magic rings could make their owners invisible, and all the
other wonders in the stories. Then, as the world became grown-up, the

fairy tales which were not written down would have been quite
forgotten but that the old grannies remembered them, and told them to
the little grandchildren: and when they, in their turn, became grannies,
they remembered them, and told them also. In this way these tales are
older than reading and writing, far older than printing. The oldest fairy
tales ever written down were written down in Egypt, about Joseph's
time, nearly three thousand five hundred years ago. Other fairy stories
Homer knew, in Greece, nearly three thousand years ago, and he made
them all up into a poem, the Odyssey, which I hope you will read some
day. Here you will find the witch who turns men into swine, and the
man who bores out the big foolish giant's eye, and the cap of darkness,
and the shoes of swiftness, that were worn later by Jack the
Giant-Killer. These fairy tales are the oldest stories in the world, and as
they were first made by men who were childlike for their own
amusement, so they amuse children still, and also grown-up people
who have not forgotten how they once were children.
Some of the stories were made, no doubt, not only to amuse, but to
teach goodness. You see, in the tales, how the boy who is kind to beasts,
and polite, and generous, and brave, always comes best through his
trials, and no doubt these tales were meant to make their hearers kind,
unselfish, courteous, and courageous. This is the moral of them. But,
after all, we think more as we read them of the diversion than of the
lesson. There are grown-up people now who say that the stories are not
good for children, because they are not true, because there are no
witches, nor talking beasts, and because people are killed in them,
especially wicked giants. But probably you who read the tales know
very well how much is true and how much is only make-believe, and I
never yet heard of a child who killed a very tall man merely because
Jack killed the giants, or who was unkind to his stepmother, if he had
one, because, in fairy tales, the stepmother is often disagreeable. If
there are frightful monsters in fairy tales, they do not frighten you