Each Fairy Book demands a preface from the Editor, and these
introductions are inevitably both monotonous and unavailing. A sense of
literary honesty compels the Editor to keep repeating that he is the
Editor, and not the author of the Fairy Tales, just as a distinguished
man of science is only the Editor, not the Author of Nature. Like
nature, popular tales are too vast to be the creation of a single
modern mind. The Editor’s business is to hunt for collections of these
stories told by peasant or savage grandmothers in many climes, from New
Caledonia to Zululand; from the frozen snows of the Polar regions to
Greece, or Spain, or Italy, or far Lochaber. When the tales are found
they are adapted to the needs of British children by various hands, the
Editor doing little beyond guarding the interests of propriety, and
toning down to mild reproofs the tortures inflicted on wicked
stepmothers, and other naughty characters.
These explanations have frequently been offered already; but, as far as
ladies and children are concerned, to no purpose. They still ask the
Editor how he can invent so many stories—more than Shakespeare, Dumas,
and Charles Dickens could have invented in a century. And the Editor
still avers, in Prefaces, that he did not invent one of the stories;
that nobody knows, as a rule, who invented them, or where, or when. It
is only plain that, perhaps a hundred thousand years ago, some savage
grandmother told a tale to a savage granddaughter; that the
granddaughter told it in her turn; that various tellers made changes to
suit their taste, adding or omitting features and incidents; that, as
the world grew civilised, other alterations were made, and that, at
last, Homer composed the “Odyssey,” and somebody else composed the
Story of Jason and the Fleece of Gold, and the enchantress Medea, out
of a set of wandering popular tales, which are still told among
Samoyeds and Samoans, Hindoos and Japanese.
All this has been known to the wise and learned for centuries, and
especially since the brothers Grimm wrote in the early years of the
Nineteenth Century. But children remain unaware of the facts, and so do
their dear mothers; whence the Editor infers that they do not read his
prefaces, and are not members of the Folk Lore Society, or students of
Herr Kohler and M. Cosquin, and M. Henri Guidoz and Professor Child,
and Mr. Max Muller. Though these explanations are not attended to by
the Editor’s customers, he makes them once more, for the relief of his
conscience. Many tales in this book are translated, or adapted, from
those told by mothers and nurses in Hungary; others are familiar to
Russian nurseries; the Servians are responsible for some; a rather
peculiarly fanciful set of stories are adapted from the Roumanians;
others are from the Baltic shores; others from sunny Sicily; a few are
from Finland, and Iceland, and Japan, and Tunis, and Portugal. No doubt
many children will like to look out these places on the map, and study
their mountains, rivers, soil, products, and fiscal policies, in the
geography books. The peoples who tell the stories differ in colour;
language, religion, and almost everything else; but they all love a
nursery tale. The stories have mainly been adapted or translated by
Mrs. Lang, a few by Miss Lang and Miss Blackley.