The Orange Fairy Book

           The Orange Fairy Book
           Edited by Andrew Lang


Preface



The children who read fairy books, or have fairy books read to them, do 
not read prefaces, and the parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, who 
give fairy books to their daughters, nieces, and cousines, leave 
prefaces unread.  For whom, then, are prefaces written?  When an author 
publishes a book 'out of his own head,' he writes the preface for his 
own pleasure.  After reading over his book in print--to make sure that 
all the 'u's' are not printed as 'n's,' and all the 'n's' as 'u's' in 
the proper names--then the author says, mildly, in his preface, what he 
thinks about his own book, and what he means it to prove--if he means 
it to prove anything--and why it is not a better book than it is.  But, 
perhaps, nobody reads prefaces except other authors; and critics, who 
hope that they will find enough in the preface to enable them to do 
without reading any of the book.

This appears to be the philosophy of prefaces in general, and perhaps 
authors might be more daring and candid than they are with advantage, 
and write regular criticisms of their own books in their prefaces, for 
nobody can be so good a critic of himself as the author--if he has a 
sense of humour.  If he has not, the less he says in his preface the 
better.

These Fairy Books, however, are not written by the Editor, as he has 
often explained, 'out of his own head.'  The stories are taken from 
those told by grannies to grandchildren in many countries and in many 
languages-- French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Gaelic, Icelandic, 
Cherokee, African, Indian, Australian, Slavonic, Eskimo, and what not.  
The stories are not literal, or word by word translations, but have 
been altered in many ways to make them suitable for children.  Much has 
been left out in places, and the narrative has been broken up into 
conversations, the characters telling each other how matters stand, and 
speaking for themselves, as children, and some older people, prefer 
them to do.  In many tales, fairly cruel and savage deeds are done, and 
these have been softened down as much as possible; though it is 
impossible, even if it were desirable, to conceal the circumstance that 
popular stories were never intended to be tracts and nothing else.  
Though they usually take the side of courage and kindness, and the 
virtues in general, the old story-tellers admire successful cunning as 
much as Homer does in the Odyssey.  At least, if the cunning hero, 
human or animal, is the weaker, like Odysseus, Brer Rabbit, and many 
others, the story-teller sees little in intellect but superior cunning, 
by which tiny Jack gets the better of the giants.  In the fairy tales 
of no country are 'improper' incidents common, which is to the credit 
of human nature, as they were obviously composed mainly for children.  
It is not difficult to get rid of this element when it does occur in 
popular tales.

The old puzzle remains a puzzle--why do the stories of the remotest 
people so closely resemble each other?  Of course, in the immeasurable 
past, they have been carried about by conquering races, and learned by 
conquering races from vanquished peoples.  Slaves carried far from home 
brought their stories with them into captivity.  Wanderers, travellers, 
shipwrecked men, merchants, and wives stolen from alien tribes have 
diffused the stories; gipsies and Jews have passed them about; Roman 
soldiers of many different races, moved here and there about the 
Empire, have trafficked in them.  From the remotest days men have been 
wanderers, and wherever they went their stories accompanied them.  The 
slave trade might take a Greek to Persia, a Persian to Greece; an 
Egyptian woman to Phoenicia; a Babylonian to Egypt; a Scandinavian 
child might be carried with the amber from the Baltic to the Adriatic; 
or a Sidonian to Ophir, wherever Ophir may have been; while the 
Portuguese may have borne their tales to South Africa, or to Asia, and 
thence brought back other tales to Egypt.  The stories wandered 
wherever the Buddhist missionaries went, and the earliest French 
voyageurs told them to the Red Indians.  These facts help to account 
for the sameness of the stories everywhere;  and the uniformity of 
human fancy in early societies must be the cause of many other 
resemblances.

In this volume there are stories from the natives of Rhodesia, 
collected by Mr. Fairbridge, who speaks the native language, and one is 
brought by Mr. Cripps from another part of Africa, Uganda.  Three tales 
from the Punjaub were collected and translated by Major Campbell.  
Various savage tales, which needed a good deal of editing, are derived 
from the learned pages of the 'Journal of the Anthropological 
Institute.'  With these exceptions, and 'The Magic Book,' translated by 
Mrs. Pedersen, from 'Eventyr fra Jylland,' by Mr. Ewald Tang Kristensen 
(Stories from Jutland), all the tales have been done, from various 
sources, by Mrs. Lang, who has modified, where it seemed desirable, all 
the narratives.



                   CONTENTS



The Story of the Hero Makoma The Magic Mirror Story of the King who 
would see Paradise How Isuro the Rabbit tricked Gudu Ian, the Soldier's 
Son The Fox and the Wolf How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon The Ugly 
Duckling The Two Caskets The Goldsmith's Fortune The Enchanted Wreath 
The Foolish Weaver The Clever Cat The Story of Manus Pinkel the Thief