The eight stories contained in this volume are first found in print in
French in a magazine entitled, _Receuil de pièces curieuses et nouvelles
tant en prose qu'en vers_, which was published by Adrian Moetjens at The
Hague in 1696-1697. They were immediately afterward published at Paris
in a volume entitled, _Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé, avec des
Moralites--Contes de ma mère l'Oie_.
The earliest translation into English has been found in a little book
containing both the English and French, entitled, "Tales of Passed
Times, by Mother Goose. With Morals. Written in French by M. (Charles)
Perrault, and Englished by R.S. Gent."
Who R.S. was and when he made his translation we can only conjecture.
Mr. Andrew Lang, in his "Perrault's Popular Tales" (p. xxxiv), writes:
"An English version translated by Mr. Samber, printed for J. Pote, was
advertised, Mr. Austin Dobson tells me, in the _Monthly Chronicle_,
March, 1729."
These stories which may be said to be as old as the race
itself--certainly their germs are to be found in the oldest literature
and among the oldest folk-tales in the world--were orally current in
France and the neighboring countries in nearly the form in which
Perrault wrote them for very many years; and an interesting account of
the various forms in which they are found in the literature and
folklore of other nations before Perrault's time is given in _Les Contes
de ma mère l'Oie avant Perrault_, by Charles Deulin, Paris, E. Dentu,
1878.
In this book Mr. Deulin inclines to the view that the stories as first
published by Perrault were not really written by him, but by his little
son of ten or eleven, to whom Perrault told the stories as he had
gathered them up with the intention of rendering them in verse after the
manner of La Fontaine. The lad had an excellent memory, much natural
wit, and a great gift of expression. He loved the stories his father
told him and thoroughly enjoyed the task his father set him of rewriting
them from memory, as an exercise. This was so happily done, in such a
fresh, artless, and engaging style, exactly befitting the subjects of
the stories, that the father found the son's version better than the one
he had contemplated and gave that to the world instead.
These stories made their way slowly in England at first, but in the end
they nearly eclipsed the native fairy tales and legends, which, owing to
Puritan influence, had been frowned upon and discouraged until they were
remembered only in the remoter districts, and told only by the few who
had not come under its sway. Indeed, the Puritanical objection to
nursery lore of all kinds still lingers in some corners of England.
The stories of Perrault came in just when the severer manifestations of
Puritanism were beginning to decline, and they have since become as much
a part of English fairy lore as the old English folk and fairy tales
themselves. These latter, thanks to Mr. Joseph Jacob, Mr. Andrew Lang,
Mr. E.S. Hartland, and others, have been unearthed and revived, and
prove to have lost nothing of their power of taking hold upon the minds
of the little folk.
Perrault says of his collection that it is certain these stories excite
in the children who read them the desire to resemble those characters
who become happy, and at the same time they inspire them with the fear
of the consequences which happen to those who do ill deeds; and he
claims that they all contain a very distinct moral which is more or less
evident to all who read them.
Emerson says: "What Nature at one time provides for use, she afterwards
turns to ornament," and Herbert Spencer, following out this idea,
remarks that "the fairy lore, which in times past was matter of grave
belief and held sway over people's conduct, has since been transformed
into ornament for _The Midsummer Night's Dream_, _The Tempest_, _The
Fairy Queen_, and endless small tales and poems; and still affords
subjects for children's story books, amuses boys and girls, and becomes
matter for jocose allusion."
Thus, also, Sir Walter Scott, in a note to "The Lady of the Lake," says:
"The mythology of one period would appear to pass into the romance of
the next, and that into the nursery tales of subsequent ages," and Max
Müller, in his "Chips from a German Workshop," says: "The gods of
ancient mythology were changed into the demigods and heroes of ancient
epic poetry, and these demigods again became at a later age the
principal characters of our nursery tales."
These thoughts may help to a better understanding of some of the uses of
such stories and of their proper place in children's reading.