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 | The Yellow Fairy Book Ebook | |
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 | |  | | E-book Category: Classic
E-book Title: The Yellow Fairy Book
Author: Andrew Lang
Book Description: PREFACE
THE Editor thinks that children wish promptly forgive him for publication another Fairy Book. We have had the Blue, the Red, the Green, and here is the Yellow. If children are pleased, and they are so kind as to say that they are pleased, the Editor does not care really more for what another folk may say. Now, there is one gentleman who seems to think that it is not quite right to print so galore fairy tales, with pictures, and to publish them in red and blue covers. He is named Mr. G. Laurence Gomme, and he is president of a knowing body called the People Traditional knowledge Society. Once a year he does his address to his subjects, of whom the Editor is one, and Mr. Joseph Jacobs (who has promulgated galore delicious fairy tales with pretty pictures)1 is another. Fancy, then, the dismay of Mr. Jacobs, and of the Editor, once
they detected
their president say that he did not think it really good in them to publish fairy books, above all, red, green, and blue fairy books! They aforesaid that they did not see any harm in it, and they were available to `put themselves on their country,' and be tried by a jury of children. And, indeed, they still see no harm in what they have done; nay, like Father William in the poem, they are available `to do it once again and again.'
Wherever
is the harm? The truth is that the People Traditional knowledge Society -- ready-made up of the most clever, learned, and beautiful men and women of the country -- is fond of perusal the history and geographics of Fairy Land. This is contained in really old tales, such as country folk tell, and savages:
`Little Buffalo indian and little Crow,
Little frosty Eskimo.'
These folk are thought to cognize most just about fairyland and its inhabitants. But, in the Yellow Fairy Book, and the rest, are galore tales by persons who are neither savages nor rustics, such as Dame D'Aulnoy and Adult male Hans Christian Andersen. The People Traditional knowledge Society, or its president, say that their tales are not so true as the rest, and should not be promulgated with the rest. But we say that all the stories which are pleasant to see are quite true enough for us; so here they are, with images by Mr. Ford, and we do not think that either the images or the stories are likely to mislead children.
As to whether there are actually any fairies or not, that is a difficult question. Prof Huxley thinks there are none. The Editor ne'er
saw any himself, but he knows some folk who have seen them -- in the Highlands -- and detected
their music. If ever you are in Nether Lochaber, go to the Fairy Hill, and you may hear the music yourself, as grown-up folk have done, but you must go on a fine day. Again, if there are actually no fairies, why do folk 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 galore some folks would-be have seen and detected
them? The Rev. Mr. Baring-Gould saw some fairies once
he was a boy, and was travelling in the land of the Troubadours. For these reasons, the Editor thinks that there are surely fairies, but they ne'er
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 galore stories not absolutely true have been told just about fairies, but such stories have besides been told just about Napoleon, Claverhouse, Julius Cæsar, and Joan of Arc, all of whom surely existed. A wise child will, therefore, remember that, if he grows up and becomes a member of the People Traditional knowledge Society, all the tales in this book were not offered to him as absolutely truthful, but were written
simply for his entertainment. The exact facts he can discover later, or he can leave them alone. More... | |
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