The Laughing Prince

The Laughing Prince, by Parker
Fillmore

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Fillmore This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: The Laughing Prince Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales
Author: Parker Fillmore
Illustrator: Jay Van Everen
Release Date: November 4, 2006 [EBook #19713]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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LAUGHING PRINCE ***

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=THE LAUGHING PRINCE=

A book of Jugoslav Fairy Tales and Folk Tales.
RETOLD BY PARKER FILLMORE
With illustrations and decorations by Jay Van Everen.
When Mr. Fillmore started his study of the folk lore of Eastern Europe,
he tapped a mine of treasure for children. The gorgeousness of the
imagery in the stories, their rollicking humor, the adventures, were
entirely new to child and adult readers. The stories in this third volume
reflect the folk lore of many races, for the country now known as
Jugoslavia has been one of the great highways and battlefields of the
world where Orient and Occident, Greek and Roman, Turk and Slav
have fought out their national aspirations. Basically, it has the Slavic
exuberance of imagination and humor, but it has also absorbed much of
the spirit and tales of the Near and Far East.
Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. 757 THIRD AVENUE, NEW YORK
17, N. Y.
80-120
BY PARKER FILLMORE
CZECHOSLOVAK FAIRY TALES THE SHOEMAKER'S APRON
Illustrated by Jan Matulka

THE LAUGHING PRINCE
A Book of Jugoslav Fairy Tales and Folk Tales
BY
PARKER FILLMORE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND DECORATIONS

BY
JAY VAN EVEREN
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HARCOURT, BRACE & WORLD, INC.
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
PARKER FILLMORE
RENEWED BY LOUISE FILLMORE
0.1.68
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO BUTTON
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

NOTE
In calling this A Book of Jugoslav Fairy Tales and Folk Tales I have
used the word Jugoslav in its literal sense of Southern Slav. The
Bulgars are just as truly Southern Slavs as the Serbs or Croats or any
other of the Slav peoples now included within the state of Jugoslavia.
Moreover in this case it would be particularly difficult to make the
literary boundaries conform strictly to the political boundaries since
much the same stories and folk tales are current among all these Slav
peoples of the Balkan Peninsula. The special student taking the variants

of the same story might discover special differences that would mark
each variant as the product of some one locality. The work of such a
student would have philological and ethnological value but not a very
strong appeal to the general reader. My appeal is first of all to the
general reader--to the child who loves fairy tales and to the adult who
loves them. I hope they will both find these stories entertaining and
amusing quite aside from any interest in their source.
Yet these tales as presented do give the reader a true idea of the
amazing vigor and the artistic inventiveness of the Jugoslav
imagination, and also of the various influences, Oriental and Northern
as well as Slavic, which have made that imagination what it is to-day.
Here are gay picaresque tales of adventure--how they go on and on and
on!--charming little stories of sentiment, a few folk tales of stark
simplicity and grim humor, one story showing a superficial Turkish
influence, and one spiritual allegory as deep and moving as anything in
the Russian.
The renderings in every case are my own and are not in any sense
translations. I have taken the old stories and retold them in a new
language. To do them justice in this new language I have found it
necessary to present them with a new selection of detail and with an
occasional shifting of emphasis. I do not mean by this that I have
invented detail in any unwarranted fashion. I haven't had to for any folk
tale, however bald, contains all sorts of things by implication. The true
story teller, it seems to me, is he who is able to grasp these implications
and turn them to his own use.
I must confess that the setting in which I have placed the famous old
Serbian nonsense story, In my young days when I was an old, old man,
is my own invention. The nonsense story needs a setting and as it
chanced I had one ready as I have long wanted to tell the world what
was back of the determination of that princess who refused to eat until
some one had made