The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women in
country places tell to their grandchildren. Nobody knows how old they
are, or who told them first. The children of Ham, Shem and Japhet may
have listened to them in the Ark, on wet days. Hector's little boy may
have heard them in Troy Town, for it is certain that Homer knew them,
and that some of them were written down in Egypt about the time of
Moses.
People in different countries tell them differently, but they are
always the same stories, really, whether among little Zulus, at the
Cape, or little Eskimo, near the North Pole. The changes are only in
matters of manners and customs; such as wearing clothes or not, meeting
lions who talk in the warm countries, or talking bears in the cold
countries. There are plenty of kings and queens in the fairy tales,
just because long ago there were plenty of kings in the country. A
gentleman who would be a squire now was a kind of king in Scotland in
very old times, and the same in other places. These old stories, never
forgotten, were taken down in writing in different ages, but mostly in
this century, in all sorts of languages. These ancient stories are the
contents of the Fairy books.
Now "The Arabian Nights," some of which, but not nearly all, are given
in this volume, are only fairy tales of the East. The people of Asia,
Arabia, and Persia told them in their own way, not for children, but
for grown-up people. There were no novels then, nor any printed books,
of course; but there were people whose profession it was to amuse men
and women by telling tales. They dressed the fairy stories up, and
made the characters good Mahommedans, living in Bagdad or India. The
events were often supposed to happen in the reign of the great Caliph,
or ruler of the Faithful, Haroun al Raschid, who lived in Bagdad in
786-808 A.D. The vizir who accompanies the Caliph was also a real
person of the great family of the Barmecides. He was put to death by
the Caliph in a very cruel way, nobody ever knew why. The stories must
have been told in their present shape a good long while after the
Caliph died, when nobody knew very exactly what had really happened.
At last some storyteller thought of writing down the tales, and fixing
them into a kind of framework, as if they had all been narrated to a
cruel Sultan by his wife. Probably the tales were written down about
the time when Edward I. was fighting Robert Bruce. But changes were
made in them at different times, and a great deal that is very dull and
stupid was put in, and plenty of verses. Neither the verses nor the
dull pieces are given in this book.
People in France and England knew almost nothing about "The Arabian
Nights" till the reigns of Queen Anne and George I., when they were
translated into French by Monsieur Galland. Grown-up people were then
very fond of fairy tales, and they thought these Arab stories the best
that they had ever read. They were delighted with Ghouls (who lived
among the tombs) and Geni, who seemed to be a kind of ogres, and with
Princesses who work magic spells, and with Peris, who are Arab fairies.
Sindbad had adventures which perhaps came out of the Odyssey of Homer;
in fact, all the East had contributed its wonders, and sent them to
Europe in one parcel. Young men once made a noise at Monsieur
Galland's windows in the dead of night, and asked him to tell them one
of his marvellous tales. Nobody talked of anything but dervishes and
vizirs, rocs and peris. The stories were translated from French into
all languages, and only Bishop Atterbury complained that the tales were
not likely to be true, and had no moral. The bishop was presently
banished for being on the side of Prince Charlie's father, and had
leisure to repent of being so solemn.
In this book "The Arabian Nights" are translated from the French
version of Monsieur Galland, who dropped out the poetry and a great
deal of what the Arabian authors thought funny, though it seems
wearisome to us. In this book the stories are shortened here and
there, and omissions are made of pieces only suitable for Arabs and old
gentlemen. The translations are by the writers of the tales in the
Fairy Books, and the pictures are by Mr. Ford.
I can remember reading "The Arabian Nights" when I was six years old,
in dirty yellow old volumes of small type with no pictures, and I hope
children who read them with Mr. Ford's pictures will be as happy as I
was then in the company of Aladdin and Sindbad the Sailor.