These Indian fairy tales are chosen from the many stories collected by
Mr. Henry R. Schoolcraft, the first man to study how the Indians lived
and to discover their legends. He lived among the Indians in the West
and around the Great Lakes for thirty years in the first part of the
Nineteenth Century and wrote many books about them.
When the story-tellers sat at the lodge fires in the long evenings to
tell of the manitoes and their magic, of how the little boy snared the
sun, of the old Toad Woman who stole the baby, and the other tales that
had been retold to generation after generation of red children, time out
of mind, Mr. Schoolcraft listened and wrote the stories down, just as he
heard them.
In 1856 this collection of his stories was published by Mason Brothers
in New York City. A small brown book with quaint engravings for
pictures, it is now only to be found here and there in families that
have always treasured its delightful contents. It is republished, with
revisions and with new illustrations in color, so that these stories may
be passed on as they deserve.