The Yellow Fairy Book | Page 3

to the Project of 20% of the net profits
you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine
University" within the 60 days following each date you prepare (or
were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic)
tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?

The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine
University".
*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

Scanned by Charles Keller for Tina with OmniPage Professional OCR
software donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. Contact Mike
Lough

THE YELLOW FAIRY BOOK
Edited by ANDREW LANG

Dedication
TO
JOAN, TODDLES, AND TINY
Books Yellow, Red, and Green and Blue, All true, or just as good as
true, And here's the Yellow Book for YOU!
Hard is the path from A to Z, And puzzling to a curly head, Yet leads to
Books--Green, Blue, and Red.
For every child should understand That letters from the first were
planned To guide us into Fairy Land
So labour at your Alphabet, For by that learning shall you get To lands
where Fairies may be met.

And going where this pathway goes, You too, at last, may find, who
knows? The Garden of the Singing Rose.

PREFACE
The Editor thinks that children will readily forgive him for publishing
another Fairy Book. We have had the Blue, the Red, the Green, and
here is the Yellow. If children are pleased, and they are so kind as to
say that they are pleased, the Editor does not care very much for what
other people may say. Now, there is one gentleman who seems to think
that it is not quite right to print so many fairy tales, with pictures, and
to publish them in red and blue covers. He is named Mr. G. Laurence
Gomme, and he is president of a learned body called the Folk Lore
Society. Once a year he makes his address to his subjects, of whom the
Editor is one, and Mr. Joseph Jacobs (who has published many
delightful fairy tales with pretty pictures)[1] is another. Fancy, then, the
dismay of Mr. Jacobs, and of the Editor, when they heard their
president say that he did not think it very nice in them to publish fairy
books, above all, red, green, and blue fairy books! They said that they
did not see any harm in it, and they were ready to 'put themselves on
their country,' and be tried by a jury of children. And, indeed, they still
see no harm in what they have done; nay, like Father William in the
poem, they are ready 'to do it again and again.'
[1] You may buy them from Mr. Nutt, in the Strand.
Where is the harm? The truth is that the Folk Lore Society--made up of
the most clever, learned, and beautiful men and women of the
country--is fond of studying the history and geography of Fairy Land.
This is contained in very old tales, such as country people tell, and
savages:
'Little Sioux and little Crow, Little frosty Eskimo.'
These people are thought to know most about fairyland and its
inhabitants. But, in the Yellow Fairy Book, and the rest, are many tales

by persons who are neither savages nor rustics, such as Madame
D'Aulnoy and Herr Hans Christian Andersen. The Folk Lore Society,
or its president, say that THEIR tales are not so true as the rest, and
should not be published with the rest. But WE say that all the stories
which are pleasant to read are quite true enough for us; so here they are,
with pictures by Mr. Ford, and we do not think that either the pictures
or the stories are likely to mislead children.
As to whether there are really any fairies or not, that is a difficult
question. Professor Huxley thinks there are none. The Editor never saw
any himself, but he knows several people who have seen them--in the
Highlands--and heard their music. If ever you are in Nether Lochaber,
go to the Fairy Hill, and you may hearthe music yourself, as grown-up
people have done, but you must goon a fine day. Again, if there are
really no fairies, why dopeople believe in them, all over the world? The
ancient Greeks believed, so did the old Egyptians, and the Hindoos, and
the Red Indians, and is it likely, if there are no fairies, that so many
different peoples would have seen and heard them?