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191 pages

English

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The Fairy Books, or "Coloured" Fairy Books is a collection of fairy tales divided into twelve books, each associated with a different colour. Collected together by Andrew Land they are sourced from a number of different countries and were translated by Lang's wife and other translators who also retold many of the tales. The collection has been incalculably important and, although he did not source the stories himself direct from the oral tradition he can make claim to the first English translation of many. First published in 1906, The Orange Fairy Bookis the 10th volume in this series.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 mai 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775410140
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE ORANGE FAIRY BOOK
* * *
Edited by
ANDREW LANG

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The Orange Fairy Book First published in 1906.
ISBN 978-1-775410-14-0
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Preface The Story of the Hero Makoma The Magic Mirror From the Senna 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 The Adventures of a Jackal The Adventures of the Jackal's Eldest Son The Adventures of the Younger Son of the Jackal The Three Treasures of the Giants The Rover of the Plain The White Doe The Girl-Fish The Owl and the Eagle The Frog and the Lion Fairy The Adventures of Covan the Brown- Haired The Princess Bella-Flor The Bird of Truth The Mink and the Wolf Adventures of an Indian Brave How the Stalos Were Tricked Andras Baive The White Slipper The Magic Book Endnotes
Preface
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The children who read fairy books, or have fairy books read to them, donot read prefaces, and the parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, whogive fairy books to their daughters, nieces, and cousines, leaveprefaces unread. For whom, then, are prefaces written? When an authorpublishes a book 'out of his own head,' he writes the preface for hisown pleasure. After reading over his book in print—to make sure thatall the 'u's' are not printed as 'n's,' and all the 'n's' as 'u's' inthe proper names—then the author says, mildly, in his preface, what hethinks about his own book, and what he means it to prove—if he meansit to prove anything—and why it is not a better book than it is. But,perhaps, nobody reads prefaces except other authors; and critics, whohope that they will find enough in the preface to enable them to dowithout reading any of the book.
This appears to be the philosophy of prefaces in general, and perhapsauthors might be more daring and candid than they are with advantage,and write regular criticisms of their own books in their prefaces, fornobody can be so good a critic of himself as the author—if he has asense of humour. If he has not, the less he says in his preface thebetter.
These Fairy Books, however, are not written by the Editor, as he hasoften explained, 'out of his own head.' The stories are taken fromthose told by grannies to grandchildren in many countries and in manylanguages— 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 havebeen altered in many ways to make them suitable for children. Much hasbeen left out in places, and the narrative has been broken up intoconversations, the characters telling each other how matters stand, andspeaking for themselves, as children, and some older people, preferthem to do. In many tales, fairly cruel and savage deeds are done, andthese have been softened down as much as possible; though it isimpossible, even if it were desirable, to conceal the circumstance thatpopular stories were never intended to be tracts and nothing else.Though they usually take the side of courage and kindness, and thevirtues in general, the old story-tellers admire successful cunning asmuch as Homer does in the Odyssey. At least, if the cunning hero,human or animal, is the weaker, like Odysseus, Brer Rabbit, and manyothers, the story-teller sees little in intellect but superior cunning,by which tiny Jack gets the better of the giants. In the fairy talesof no country are 'improper' incidents common, which is to the creditof human nature, as they were obviously composed mainly for children.It is not difficult to get rid of this element when it does occur inpopular tales.
The old puzzle remains a puzzle—why do the stories of the remotestpeople so closely resemble each other? Of course, in the immeasurablepast, they have been carried about by conquering races, and learned byconquering races from vanquished peoples. Slaves carried far from homebrought their stories with them into captivity. Wanderers, travellers,shipwrecked men, merchants, and wives stolen from alien tribes havediffused the stories; gipsies and Jews have passed them about; Romansoldiers of many different races, moved here and there about theEmpire, have trafficked in them. From the remotest days men have beenwanderers, and wherever they went their stories accompanied them. Theslave trade might take a Greek to Persia, a Persian to Greece; anEgyptian woman to Phoenicia; a Babylonian to Egypt; a Scandinavianchild might be carried with the amber from the Baltic to the Adriatic;or a Sidonian to Ophir, wherever Ophir may have been; while thePortuguese may have borne their tales to South Africa, or to Asia, andthence brought back other tales to Egypt. The stories wanderedwherever the Buddhist missionaries went, and the earliest Frenchvoyageurs told them to the Red Indians. These facts help to accountfor the sameness of the stories everywhere; and the uniformity ofhuman fancy in early societies must be the cause of many otherresemblances.
In this volume there are stories from the natives of Rhodesia,collected by Mr. Fairbridge, who speaks the native language, and one isbrought by Mr. Cripps from another part of Africa, Uganda. Three talesfrom the Punjaub were collected and translated by Major Campbell.Various savage tales, which needed a good deal of editing, are derivedfrom the learned pages of the 'Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute.' With these exceptions, and 'The Magic Book,' translated byMrs. Pedersen, from 'Eventyr fra Jylland,' by Mr. Ewald Tang Kristensen(Stories from Jutland), all the tales have been done, from varioussources, by Mrs. Lang, who has modified, where it seemed desirable, allthe narratives.
The Story of the Hero Makoma
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From the Senna (OralTradition)
Once upon a time, at the town of Senna on the banks of the Zambesi, wasborn a child. He was not like other children, for he was very tall andstrong; over his shoulder he carried a big sack, and in his hand aniron hammer. He could also speak like a grown man, but usually he wasvery silent.
One day his mother said to him: 'My child, by what name shall we knowyou?'
And he answered: 'Call all the head men of Senna here to the river'sbank.' And his mother called the head men of the town, and when theyhad come he led them down to a deep black pool in the river where allthe fierce crocodiles lived.
'O great men!' he said, while they all listened, 'which of you willleap into the pool and overcome the crocodiles?' But no one would comeforward. So he turned and sprang into the water and disappeared.
The people held their breath, for they thought: 'Surely the boy isbewitched and throws away his life, for the crocodiles will eat him!'Then suddenly the ground trembled, and the pool, heaving and swirling,became red with blood, and presently the boy rising to the surface swamon shore.
But he was no longer just a boy! He was stronger than any man and verytall and handsome, so that the people shouted with gladness when theysaw him.
'Now, O my people!' he cried, waving his hand, 'you know my name—I amMakoma, "the Greater"; for have I not slain the crocodiles into thepool where none would venture?'
Then he said to his mother: 'Rest gently, my mother, for I go to make ahome for myself and become a hero.' Then, entering his hut he tookNu-endo, his iron hammer, and throwing the sack over his shoulder, hewent away.
Makoma crossed the Zambesi, and for many moons he wandered towards thenorth and west until he came to a very hilly country where, one day, hemet a huge giant making mountains.
'Greeting,' shouted Makoma, 'you are you?'
'I am Chi-eswa-mapiri, who makes the mountains,' answered the giant;'and who are you?'
'I am Makoma, which signifies "greater,"' answered he.
'Greater than who?' asked the giant.
'Greater than you!' answered Makoma.
The giant gave a roar and rushed upon him. Makoma said nothing, butswinging his great hammer, Nu-endo, he struck the giant upon the head.
He struck him so hard a blow that the giant shrank into quite a littleman, who fell upon his knees saying: 'You are indeed greater than I, OMakoma; take me with you to be your slave!' So Makoma picked him upand dropped him into the sack that he carried upon his back.
He was greater than ever now, for all the giant's strength had goneinto him; and he resumed his journey, carrying his burden with aslittle difficulty as an eagle might carry a hare.
Before long he came to a country broken up with huge stones and immenseclods of earth. Looking over one of the heaps he saw a giant wrappedin dust dragging out the very earth and hurling it in handfuls oneither side of him.
'Who are you,' cried Makoma, 'that pulls up the earth in this way?'
'I am Chi-dubula-taka,' said he, 'and I am making the river-beds.'
'Do you know who I am?' said Makoma. 'I am he that is called"greater"!'
'Greater than who?' thundered the giant.
'Greater than you!' answered Makoma.
With a shout, Chi-dubula-taka seized a great clod of earth and launchedit at Makoma. But the hero had his sack held over his left arm and thestones and earth fell harmlessly upon it, and, tightly gripping hisiron hammer, he rushed in and struck the giant to the ground.Chi-dubula-taka grovelled before him, all the while growing smaller andsmaller; and when he had b