THE VIOLET FAIRY BOOK
Edited by ANDREW LANG




TO VIOLET MYERS
IS DEDICATED
THE VIOLET FAIRY BOOK


PREFACE


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