himself, great as he was. Let ladies and gentlemen think of this
when they sit down to write fairy tales, and have them nicely
typed, and send them to Messrs. Longman & Co. to be published.
They think that to write a new fairy tale is easy work. They are
mistaken: the thing is impossible. Nobody can write a new fairy
tale; you can only mix up and dress up the old, old stories, and
put the characters into new dresses, as Miss Thackeray did so
well in 'Five Old Friends.' If any big girl of fourteen reads
this preface, let her insist on being presented with 'Five Old
Friends.'

But the three hundred and sixty-five authors who try to write new
fairy tales are very tiresome. They always begin with a little
boy or girl who goes out and meets the fairies of polyanthuses
and gardenias and apple blossoms: 'Flowers and fruits, and other
winged things.' These fairies try to be funny, and fail; or they
try to preach, and succeed. Real fairies never preach or talk
slang. At the end, the little boy or girl wakes up and finds that
he has been dreaming.

Such are the new fairy stories. May we be preserved from all the
sort of them!

Our stories are almost all old, some from Ireland, before that
island was as celebrated for her wrongs as for her verdure; some
from Asia, made, I dare say, before the Aryan invasion; some from
Moydart, Knoydart, Morar and Ardnamurchan, where the sea streams
run like great clear rivers and the saw-edged hills are blue, and
men remember Prince Charlie. Some are from Portugal, where the
golden fruits grow in the Garden of the Hesperides; and some are