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? The Rev. Mr.
Baring-Gould saw several fairies when he was a boy, and was
travelling in the land of the Troubadours. For these reasons,
the Editor thinks that there are certainly fairies, but they
never do anyone any harm; and, in England, they have been
frightened away by smoke and schoolmasters. As to Giants, they
have died out, but real Dwarfs are common in the forests of
Africa. Probably a good many stories not perfectly true have
been told about fairies, but such stories have also been told
about Napoleon, Claverhouse, Julius Caesar, and Joan of Arc, all
of whom certainly existed. A wise child will, therefore,
remember that, if he grows up and becomes a member of the Folk
Lore Society, ALL the tales in this book were not offered to him
as absolutely truthful, but were printed merely for his
entertainment. The exact facts he can learn later, or he can
leave them alone.


There are Russian, German, French, Icelandic, Red Indian, and
other stories here. They were translated by Miss Cheape, Miss
Alma, and Miss Thyra Alleyne, Miss Sellar, Mr. Craigie (he did
the Icelandic tales), Miss Blackley, Mrs. Dent, and Mrs. Lang,
but the Red Indian stories are copied from English versions
published by the Smithsonian Bureau of Ethnology, in America.
Mr. Ford did the pictures, and it is hoped that children will
find the book not less pleasing than those which have already