only been handed down wholly by word or mouth for a thousand years, but
are flourishing to-day and extending into fresh fields.

The stories made by the people, and told before evening fires, or in
public places and at the gates of inns in the Orient, belong to the ages
when books were few and knowledge limited, or to people whose fancy was
not hampered by familiarity with or care for facts; they are the
creations, as they were the amusement, of men and women who were
children in knowledge, but were thinking deeply and often wisely of what
life meant to them, and were eager to know and hear more about
themselves, their fellows, and the world. In the earlier folk-stories
one finds a childlike simplicity and readiness to believe in the
marvellous; and these qualities are found also in the French peasant's
version of the career of Napoleon.

HAMILTON W. MABIE




FOLK TALES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW




I

HANS IN LUCK