century. And the Editor still avers, in Prefaces, that he did not
invent one of the stories; that nobody knows, as a rule, who
invented them, or where, or when. It is only plain that, perhaps a
hundred thousand years ago, some savage grandmother told a tale
to a savage granddaughter; that the granddaughter told it in her
turn; that various tellers made changes to suit their taste, adding or
omitting features and incidents; that, as the world grew civilised,
other alterations were made, and that, at last, Homer composed the
'Odyssey,' and somebody else composed the Story of Jason and the
Fleece of Gold, and the enchantress Medea, out of a set of
wandering popular tales, which are still told among Samoyeds and
Samoans, Hindoos and Japanese.

All this has been known to the wise and learned for centuries, and
especially since the brothers Grimm wrote in the early years of the
Nineteenth Century. But children remain unaware of the facts, and
so do their dear mothers; whence the Editor infers that they do not
read his prefaces, and are not members of the FolkLore Society, or
students of Herr Kohler and M. Cosquin, and M. Henri Guidoz and
Professor Child, and Mr. Max Muller. Though these explanations
are not attended to by the Editor's customers, he makes them once
more, for the relief of his conscience. Many tales in this book are
translated, or adapted, from those told by mothers and nurses in
Hungary; others are familiar to Russian nurseries; the Servians are
responsible for some; a rather peculiarly fanciful set of stories are
adapted from the Roumanians; others are from the Baltic shores;
others from sunny Sicily; a few are from Finland, and Iceland, and
Japan, and Tunis, and Portugal. No doubt many children will like to
look out these places on the map, and study their mountains, rivers,
soil, products, and fiscal policies, in the geography books. The