Each Fairy Book demands a preface from the Editor, and these introductions areinevitably both monotonous and unavailing. A sense of literary honesty compelsthe Editor to keep repeating that he is the Editor, and not the author of theFairy Tales, just as a distinguished man of science is only the Editor, not theAuthor of Nature. Like nature, popular tales are too vast to be the creation ofa single modern mind. The Editor’s business is to hunt for collections of thesestories told by peasant or savage grandmothers in many climes, from NewCaledonia to Zululand; from the frozen snows of the Polar regions to Greece, orSpain, or Italy, or far Lochaber. When the tales are found they are adapted tothe needs of British children by various hands, the Editor doing little beyondguarding the interests of propriety, and toning down to mild reproofs thetortures inflicted on wicked stepmothers, and other naughty characters.
These explanations have frequently been offered already; but, as far as ladiesand children are concerned, to no purpose. They still ask the Editor how he caninvent so many stories—more than Shakespeare, Dumas, and Charles Dickens couldhave invented in a century. And the Editor still avers, in Prefaces, that hedid not invent one of the stories; that nobody knows, as a rule, who inventedthem, or where, or when. It is only plain that, perhaps a hundred thousandyears ago, some savage grandmother told a tale to a savage granddaughter; thatthe granddaughter told it in her turn; that various tellers made changes tosuit their taste, adding or omitting features and incidents; that, as the worldgrew civilised, other alterations were made, and that, at last, Homer composedthe “Odyssey,” and somebody else composed the Story of Jason and the Fleece ofGold, and the enchantress Medea, out of a set of wandering popular tales, whichare still told among Samoyeds and Samoans, Hindoos and Japanese.
All this has been known to the wise and learned for centuries, and especiallysince 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; whencethe Editor infers that they do not read his prefaces, and are not members ofthe Folk Lore Society, or students of Herr Kohler and M. Cosquin, and M. HenriGuidoz and Professor Child, and Mr. Max Muller. Though these explanations arenot attended to by the Editor’s customers, he makes them once more, for therelief of his conscience. Many tales in this book are translated, or adapted,from those told by mothers and nurses in Hungary; others are familiar toRussian nurseries; the Servians are responsible for some; a rather peculiarlyfanciful set of stories are adapted from the Roumanians; others are from theBaltic 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 lookout these places on the map, and study their mountains, rivers, soil, products,and fiscal policies, in the geography books. The peoples who tell the storiesdiffer in colour; language, religion, and almost everything else; but they alllove a nursery tale. The stories have mainly been adapted or translated by Mrs.Lang, a few by Miss Lang and Miss Blackley.