Let a child open the covers of this book, and straightway he is in that land of all delights—Fairy Realm. Here Fairy Godmothers reward good children, and punish bad ones; here red-capped Little Men yield up their treasures of gold and magic gifts, while Pixies drop silver pennies in water-pails, and merry Spriggans and Fays hold nightly revels in the moonlight. Here, too, a child may dance in Fairy Rings, or hie away to Elfinland for a year and a day to play with wonder-children, pick Fairy flowers, listen to Fairy birds, and be fed on magic goodies.

Old favourites like “Cinderella,” “Toads and Diamonds,” and “Robin Goodfellow,” may charm the little reader, or other delightful tales, new to most children, such as “Butterfly’s Diamond” and “Timothy Tuttle and the Little Imps,” will fascinate as much as do the older tales. Stories are here from all lands where Fairies thrive—Elfin-lore, legends, myths, and wonder-tales from China, Japan, the South Seas, England, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and Red Indian land, and from many other Elfin-haunted spots.And every story is about “Fairies black, grey, green, and white,” and every one has been selected for delightful humour, fancy, or ethical teaching. Nearly all have been retold to meet the needs of story-tellers and to please the children. As far as possible the language of the originals has been retained and elements that will terrify little children or teach them that wrong is right, have been eliminated. The French tales—all but one—have been freshly translated.

A subject index is appended to aid the storyteller in choosing stories dealing with specific subjects, such as fruits, flowers, seasons, holidays, trees, also with moral qualities like obedience, thrift, honesty, and truth-telling.

To impart true Fairy spirit as well as literary flavour, many famous Fairy poems by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, and other poets are included; so that the volume forms a collection of the best Fairy literature, not merely planned to give the children joy, but to be of real educational value.

“But of what possible educational value are Fairy tales?” asks the practical parent or teacher.

They are essential in the right development of a child’s mind. They embody the poetic fancy of the race. They stimulate a child’s imagination, feed his fancy, and satisfy poetically his groping after things unseen. His craving for such tales is due to a normal growth of mind. If he be deprived of Fairy tales in childhood, he is likely, as an adult, to lack the creative imagination which makes big-visioned men and women, and leads to success in literature, art, invention, or in the practical things of business life. There are, of course, children who do not like Fairy tales, but they are few and far between, and other forms of literature may be found which will, in part, help to develop their peculiar type of mentality. But Fairy tales are the heritage of the normal child, and if he be judiciously fed on them, in later life he will have a more plastic imagination and be able to enjoy more fully the beauties of great poetry and other fine literature.

Robert Burns said in a letter to Dr. Moore that in his infant and boyish days he owed much to an old woman who lived in his family; for her tales of Brownies, and Fairies, and other wonders “cultivated the latent seeds of poetry” in the poet’s mind. And even the grave Luther said, “I would not for any quantity of gold part with the wonderful tales which I have retained from my earliest childhood, or have met with in my progress through life.”

Charles Lamb, and Coleridge too, believed heartily in Fairy tales. “Ought children to be permitted to read romances, and stories of Giants, Magicians, and Genii?” asked Coleridge. “I know all that has been said against it; but I have formed my faith in the affirmative. I know no other way of giving the mind a love of the Great and the Whole.... I read every book that came in my way without distinction, and my father was fond of me and used to take me on his knee, and hold long conversations with me. I remember when eight years old walking with him one winter evening, ... and he then told me the names of the stars, and how Jupiter was a thousand times larger than our world, and that the other twinkling stars were suns that had worlds rolling round them; and when I came home he showed me how they rolled round. I heard him with a profound delight and admiration, but without the least mixture of wonder or incredulity. For from my early reading of Fairy tales and about Genii, and the like, my mind had been habituated to the Vast; and I never regarded my senses in any way as the criteria of my belief.”

Such, then, is the educational mission of the Fairy tale, not only to give pure joy, but to enlarge the mind. And as childhood is the only time when this miracle takes place in its completeness, every child who so desires should be allowed to wander at will in the land of imaginative delights, where the King of Fairy Poets, Shakespeare, loved to wander as a child and as a man. In “The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies” that benign shape answers grisly Time who would cut down “all the assembled Fays”:—