# The red book of animal stories

ANIMAL STORIES
EDITED BY ANDREW LANG.
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LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 39 Paternoster Row, London
New York and Bombay.
THE RED BOOK
OF
Animal Stories
SELECTED AND EDITED
BY
ANDREW LANG
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. J. FORD
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1899
All rights reserved
Copyright 1899
BY
Longmans, Green, & Co.
TO
MISS SYBIL CORBET
Author of ‘Animal Land’ ‘Sybil’s Garden of Pleasant Beasts’ and ‘Epiotic Poems’
Sybil, the Beasts we bring to you Are not so friendly, not so odd, As those that all amazed we view, The brutes created by your nod— The Wuss, the Azorkon, and the Pod; But then our tales are true!
Fauna of fancy, one and all Obey your happy voice, we know; A garden zoological Is all around, where’er you go. Mellys and Kanks walk to and fro, And Dids attend your call.
We have but common wolves and bears, Lion and leopard, hawk and hind, Tigers, and crocodiles, and hares: But yet they hope you will be kind, And mark with sympathetic mind These moving tales of theirs.
PREFACE
Children who read this book will perhaps ask whether all the stories are true? Now all the stories are not true; at least, we never meet the Phœnix now in any known part of the world. To be sure, there are other creatures, such as the Mastodon and the Pterodactyl, which are not found alive anywhere, but their bones remain, turned into stones or fossils. It is unlikely that they were changed into rocks by a witch, or by Perseus with the Gorgon’s Head, in the Greek story. It must have been done in some other way. However, the bones, now stones, show that there were plenty of queer beasts that have died out. Possibly the sight of the stone beasts and birds made people believe, long ago, in such creatures as Dragons, and the water-bulls that haunt the lochs in the Highlands. One of these was seen by a shepherd about eighty years since, and an account of it was sent to Sir Walter Scott. There is also the Bunyip, a strange creature which both white and black men say that they have seen in the lakes of Australia. Then there ​is the Sea Serpent; many people have seen him alive, but no specimen of a dead Sea Serpent is in any of the museums. About 1,300 years ago, more or less, St. Columba saw a great water-beast, which lived in the river Ness, and roared as it pursued men; but the Saint put an end to its adventures. For my part, I do not disbelieve that there may be plenty of strange animals which scientific men have not yet dissected and named by long names. Some of the last of these may have been remembered and called Dragons. For, if there were never any Dragons, why did all sorts of nations tell stories about them? The Fire Drake, however, also the Ice Beast, or Remora, do seem very unlikely creatures, and perhaps they are only a sort of poetical inventions. The stories about these unscientific animals are told by Mr. H. S. C. Everard, who found them in very curious old books.
The stories about Foxes are by Miss B. Grieve, who is a great friend of Foxes, and takes their side when they are hunted by the Duke of Buccleuch’s hounds. I am afraid she would not tell where the Fox was hiding, if she knew (as she sometimes does), just as you would not have told his enemies, if you had known that Charles II. was hiding in the oak tree. Not that it is wrong to hunt foxes, but a person who is not hunting naturally takes the weaker side. And, after all, the fun is to pursue the fox, not to catch him. The same lady wrote about sheep in ‘Sheep Farming on the Border.’
​The stories about ‘Tom the Bear’ are taken from the French works on natural history by M. Alexandre Dumas. We cannot be sure that every word of them is true, for M. Dumas wrote novels chiefly, which you must read when you are older. One of these novels is about Charles I, and it is certainly not all true, so we cannot believe every word that M. Dumas tells us. He had a great deal of imagination—enough for about thirteen thousand living novelists.
Most of the other tales are written by Mrs. Lang, and are as true as possible; while Miss Lang took the adventures of a Lion Tamer, and ‘A Boar Hunt by Moonlight,’ out of French and German books. The story of greedy Squouncer, by Mrs. Lang, is true, every word, and I wrote ‘The Life and Death of Pincher,’ who belonged to a friend of mine. Squouncer’s portrait is from a photograph, and does justice to his noble expression.
Miss Blackley also did some of the stories. Most of the tales of ‘Thieving Dogs and Horses’ were published, about 1819, by Sir Walter Scott, in ‘Blackwood’s Magazine,’ from which they are taken by Mrs. Lang.
I have tried to make it clear that this is not altogether a scientific book; but a great deal of it is more to be depended on than ‘A Bad Boy’s Book of Beasts,’ or Miss Sybil Corbet’s books, ‘Animal Land,’ and ‘Sybil’s Garden of Pleasant Beasts.’
​These are amusing, but it is not true that ‘the Garret Lion ate Sybil’s mummy.’ Indeed, I think that when people, long ago, invented the Fire Drake, and the Ice Beast, they were just like Miss Corbet, when she invented the Kank, the Wuss, and other animals. That is to say, they were children in their minds, though grown up in their bodies. They fancied that they saw creatures which were never created.
If this book has any moral at all, it is to be kind to all sorts and conditions of animals—that will let you. Most girls are ready to do this, but boys used to be apt to be unkind to Cats when I was a boy. There is no reason why an exception should be made as to Cats, and a boy ought to think of this before he throws stones or sets dogs at a cat. Now, in London, we often see the little street boys making friends with every cat they meet, but this is not so common in the country. If anything in this book amuses a boy, let him be kind to poor puss, and protect her, for the sake of his obedient friend,
ANDREW LANG.
CONTENTS
| | PAGE |
| The Phœnix | 1 |
| Griffins and Unicorns | 4 |
| About Ants, Amphisbænas, and Basilisks | 12 |
| Dragons | 20 |
| The Story of Beowulf, Grendel, and Grendel’s Mother | 33 |
| The Story of Beowulf and the Fire Drake | 43 |
| A Fox Tale | 49 |
| An Egyptian Snake Charmer | 55 |
| An Adventure of Gérard, the Lion Hunter | 61 |
| Pumas and Jaguars in South America | 84 |
| Mathurin and Mathurine | 98 |
| Joseph: Whose proper name was Josephine | 102 |
| The Homes of the Vizcachas | 108 |
| Guanacos Living and Dying | 112 |
| In the American Desert | 117 |
| The Story of Jacko II | 128 |
| ‘Princess’ | 135 |
| The Lion and the Saint | 138 |
| The Further Adventures of ‘Tom’, a Bear, in Paris | 143 |
| Recollections of a Lion Tamer | 154 |
| Sheep Farming on the Border | 171 |
| When the World was Young | 177 |
| Bats and Vampires | 196 |
| The Ugliest Beast in the World | 200 |
| The Games of Orang-Outangs, and Kees the Baboon | 206 |
| Greyhounds and their Masters | 224 |
| The Great Father, and Snakes’ Ways | 232 |
| Elephant Shooting | 238 |
| Hyenas and Children | 252 |
| A Fight with a Hippopotamus | 257 |
| Kanny, the Kangaroo | 261 |
| Collies, or Sheep Dogs | 266 |
| Two Big Dogs and a Little One | 273 |
| Crocodile Stories | 280 |
| Lion-Hunting and Lions | 285 |
| On the Trail of a Man-eater | 304 |
| Greyhounds and their Arab Masters | 310 |
| The Life and Death of Pincher | 317 |
| A Boar Hunt by Moonlight | 321 |
| Thieving Dogs and Horses | 328 |
| To the Memory of Squouncer | 339 |
| How Tom the Bear was born a Frenchman | 344 |
| Charley | 357 |
| Fairy Rings; and the Fairies who make them | 364 |
| How the Reindeer Live | 370 |
| The Cow and the Crocodile | 376 |
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
| The Lion falls in love with Aissa | Frontispiece |
| The Griffin | to face p. 4 |
| How the Unicorn was Trapped | 9 |
| Finding a Mermaid | 16 |
| Victor carried up the Chasm by the Dragon | 26 |
| Queen Waltheow and Beowulf | 34 |
| Grendel’s Mother drags Beowulf to the bottom of the Lake | 38 |
| The Death of Beowulf | 44 |
| The Lion falls in love with Aissa | 62 |
| Aissa’s Father finds her Axe | 70 |
| The Lion appears at the top of the Ravine | 78 |
| Maldonada guarded by the Puma | 88 |
| The Jaguar besieged by Peccaries | 92 |
| Joseph’s Breakfast | 104 |
| St. Jerome draws out the Thorn | 138 |
| Tom frightens the Little Girl | 144 |
| Just in time to save Tom | 150 |
| Securing a Mammoth | 178 |
| Megatheria | 184 |
| The Vampire Bat | 196 |
| How the Namaquas hunt the Rhinoceros | 202 |
| Orang-Outangs eating Oysters on the Sea-shore | 208 |
| The Orang determines to throw the rival Monkeys overboard | 212 |
| When this Prize was laid at the feet of the Lady, the Giver might ask in return for anything he chose | to face p. 224 |
| Baker shooting the Elephants at the Island | 240 |
| Hannibal’s Elephants | 248 |
| The Lion was in the air close to him | 290 |
| The Woodman and the Lions get the best of the Bear | 296 |
| The Highwayman’s Horse | 334 |
| The Captain had a Strange Dream | 346 |
| The Bear instantly rose on its hind legs and began to Dance | 352 |
| Then a soft nose touched him | 358 |
IN TEXT
| The Phœnix | 2 |
| The Odenthos | 13 |
| The Demon of Cathay | 15 |
| Ragnar does battle with the Serpents | 23 |
| De Gozon and his Dogs fight the Dragon | 31 |
| The Snake Charmer | 57 |
| The Lion said to the Gazelles ‘Do not flee’ | 67 |
| The Lion laughs at the Marabout’s Question | 75 |
| Mathurin and Mathurine | 99 |
| Spaniards meeting a Caravan of Llamas | 113 |
| Watching the Combat | 121 |
| The Moccason Snake fascinates the Orioles | 123 |
| ‘Princess and the Invalid’ | 136 |
| The Lion rescues the Ass from the Caravan | 142 |
| I seized him by the scruff of the neck | 159 |
| The Lion Tamer offers to wake the (stuffed) Crocodile! | 163 |
| Digging the imprisoned Sheep out of the Snow | 175 |
| Stegosaurus | 189 |
| Pterodactyl | 193 |
| Le Vaillant and Fees out limiting | 217 |
| The Baboon who looked after the Goats | 221 |
| The Snakes found in the Lame Man’s Bed | 235 |
| Oswell’s narrow Escape | 245 |
| How the Hippopotamus attacked the Boat | 259 |
| The New Arrival | 262 |
| Kanny frightens the Carpenters | 264 |
| The Faithful Messenger | 267 |
| Finding the Necklace | 283 |
| The Lion in the Camp | 301 |
| Cumming’s Cap frightens the Tiger | 305 |
| The Elephant tried to gore the Tiger with his Tusks | 308 |
| The Summons to the Hunt | 313 |
| Vomhammel in Danger | 325 |
| A Portrait of Greedy Squouncer | 341 |
| Hunting the Bison | 367 |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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