# The Pink Fairy Book

Layout 2
THE
Pink Fairy Book
WORKS BY ANDREW LANG.
Modern Mythology. 8vo. $3.00
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts. Crown 8vo. $2.00
Pickle the Spy; or, the Incognito of Prince Charles. With 6 Portraits. 8vo. $5.00.
Ban and Arrière Ban. Crown 8vo. $1.50.
Cock Lane and Common-Sense. Crown 8vo. $1.25.
St. Andrews. 8vo. $5.00.
Homer and the Epic. Crown Svo. $2.50.
Ballads of Books. Edited by Andrew Lang. Fcp. 8vo. $2.00.
Books and Bookmen. With 2 Coloured Plates and 17 Illustrations. Fcp. 8vo. $1.00.
Old Friends. Fcp. 8vo. $1.00.
Letters on Literature. Fcp. 8vo, $1.00.
Grass of Parnassus. Fcp. 8vo. $1.00.
Angling Sketches. With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.25.
The Blue Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. With 99 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.00.
The Red Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. With 134 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.00.
The Green Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. With 99 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.00.
The Yellow Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. With 104 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.00.
The Blue Poetry Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. With 100 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.00. School Edition, without Illustrations. Fcp. 8vo. 60 cents, net.
The True Story Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. With 66 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.00.
The Red True Story Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. With 100 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.00.
The Animal Story Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. With 67 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.00.
A Monk of Fife: a Romance of the Days of Jeanne D’Arc. With Illustrations and Initial Letters by Selwyn Image. Crown 8vo. $1.25.
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
New York, London, and Bombay.
THE MAIDEN BRINGS THE COAT OF HAIR TO THE GIANT.
THE
Pink Fairy Book
EDITED BY
ANDREW LANG
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. J. FORD
NEW YORK
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
LONDON AND BOMBAY
1897
All rights reserved
Copyright 1897
by
Longmans, Green, & Co.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
PREFACE
All people in the world tell nursery tales to their children. The Japanese tell them, the Chinese, the Red Indians by their camp fires, the Eskimo in their dark dirty winter huts. The Kaffirs of South Africa tell them, and the modern Greeks, just as the old Egyptians did, when Moses had not been many years rescued out of the bulrushes. The Germans, French, Spanish, Italians, Danes, Highlanders tell them also, and the stories are apt to be like each other everywhere. A child who has read the Blue and Red and Yellow Fairy Books will find some old friends with new faces in the Pink Fairy Book, if he examines and compares. But the Japanese tales will probably be new to the young student; the Tanuki is a creature whose acquaintance he may not have made before. He may remark that Andersen wants to ‘point a moral,’ as well as to ‘adorn a tale;’ that he is trying to make fun of the follies of mankind, as they exist in civilised countries. The Danish story of ‘The Princess in the Chest’ need not be read to a very nervous child, as it rather borders on a ghost story. It has been altered, and is really much more horrid in the language of the Danes, who, as history tells us, were not a nervous ​or timid people. I am quite sure that this story is not true. The other Danish and Swedish stories not are alarming. They are translated by Mr. W. A. Craigie. Those from the Sicilian (through the German) are translated, like the African tales (through the French) and the Catalan tales, and the Japanese stories (the latter through the German), and an old French story, by Mrs. Lang. Miss Alma Alleyne did the stories from Andersen, out of the German. Mr. Ford, as usual, has drawn the monsters and mermaids, the princes and giants, and the beautiful princesses, who, the Editor thinks, are, if possible, prettier than ever. Here, then, are fancies brought from all quarters: we see that black, white, and yellow peoples are fond of just the same kinds of adventures. Courage, youth, beauty, kindness, have many trials, but they always win the battle; while witches, giants, unfriendly cruel people, are on the losing hand. So it ought to be, and so, on the whole, it is and will be; and that is all the moral of fairy tales. We cannot all be young, alas! and pretty, and strong; but nothing prevents us from being kind, and no kind man, woman, or beast or bird, ever comes to anything but good in these oldest fables of the world. So far all the tales are true, and no further.
CONTENTS
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This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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