The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Russian Grandmother's Wonder Tales

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Russian Grandmother's Wonder TalesThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Russian Grandmother's Wonder TalesAuthor: Louise Seymour HoughtonFriedrich S. KraussIllustrator: Wladyslaw T. BendaRelease date: March 25, 2014 [eBook #45214]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for ProjectGutenberg (This file was produced from images generouslymade available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RUSSIAN GRANDMOTHER'S WONDER TALES ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Russian Grandmother's Wonder TalesAuthor: Louise Seymour HoughtonFriedrich S. KraussIllustrator: Wladyslaw T. BendaRelease date: March 25, 2014 [eBook #45214]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for ProjectGutenberg (This file was produced from images generouslymade available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

Title: The Russian Grandmother's Wonder Tales

Author: Louise Seymour HoughtonFriedrich S. KraussIllustrator: Wladyslaw T. Benda

Author: Louise Seymour Houghton

Friedrich S. Krauss

Illustrator: Wladyslaw T. Benda

Release date: March 25, 2014 [eBook #45214]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for ProjectGutenberg (This file was produced from images generouslymade available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RUSSIAN GRANDMOTHER'S WONDER TALES ***

THERUSSIAN GRANDMOTHER’SWONDER TALESThe old woman stole out to the tree, crept under the bed, and there hid herselfThe old woman stole out to the tree, crept under the bed, and there hid herselfOriginal Title Page.The Russian Grandmother’s Wonder TalesBYLouise Seymour HoughtonILLUSTRATED BYW. T. BENDACHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONSNEW YORKCopyright, 1906, byCHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONSPrinted in the United States of AmericaAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of Charles Scribner’s SonsThe Scribner Press publisher’s logo.TOTHE FIVE GRANDCHILDRENPHILLIPS, SHERRILL, MARGARET, RUSSELL, AND CAROLINEPREFACEThe stories which the Russian grandmother told will be found, with many others, in a German collection of “Tales and Legends of South Slavonia,” put forth in Vienna some twenty years ago by Dr. Friedrich Kraus, an ardent student of folk-lore. I have sketched in a slight background of peasant village life as it still exists in some parts of Southern Russia, because this is the proper setting of these stories; and I have been careful to clothe them as nearly as I might in the simple language in which they are told to-day by many a village fireside in South Slavonia.I frankly confess to having received from Mr. Joel Chandler Harris the suggestion which I have thus carried out. It was anunerring literary instinct which impelled him to put upon the lips ofUncle Remusand in the environment of a Southern country home of half a century ago the stories which he had found among the colored people of the South. Folk-tales, of whatever character, speak the more directly home to the hearts of children, whatever their own intellectual environment, in proportion as their setting is most nearly that which naturally belongs to them. Just as the highest value of the Homeric poems is their revelation of the heart of man, showing that in all ages and under all conditions heart answers to heart as face answers to face in water, so the folk-tales of all peoples in their native form have a higher function than simply to amuse, a higher than mere literary value; they are the child’s best introduction to the study of human nature.The children will not be the less interested in the stories which the Russian grandmothertold to the little peasant boy if they discover in her wonder-tales some analogies with stories that they already know. The adventures ofMaster ReineckeandMrs. Petz, ofIsegrimandLampe, will surely remind them of the Uncle Remus tales; they will find some suggestion ofKamer-es-zamanand thePrincess Budoorin the story of “The Beg and the Fox,” a hint of the “City of Brass,” in that of “The Vila in Muhlenberg,” a faint reflection of the “Arabian Nights” story of theFishermanin the tale of the “Three Eels,” and they will be especially pleased to recognize their old friend—andSindbad the Sailor’s—the roc, in the birdKumrikusha. The transformations which are so enchanting a feature of the “Arabian Nights” are here suggested in the story of “Steelpacha,” while the dress of feathers, most universal of folk-fancies, found among every people in the world, and most perfectly developed in theArabian “Story of Hassan of Bassora,” here appears in the tale of “The Golden Apple-tree and the Nine Pea-hens.”That these stories originated in that fountain-head of wonder-tales, the East, is very evident. They give more than a few suggestions of biblical story: the servant sent to announce the readiness of the feast (a courtesy of which I was myself the recipient in Syria last winter), the Delilah-like importunities by which the youngest sister lures fromSteelpachathe secret of his strength, are perhaps the most striking instances.Although this preface is not written for the children, yet as there are children who occasionally dip into prefaces, let me call the attention of such to the difference, both in style and point of view, between these stories and those which they have received from the brothers Grimm, from Hans Andersen, and from a host of later writers. All of these drew their material from the same sourcesas those of the Russian grandmother; but their cultivated minds have worked this material into exquisite literary forms. Not so your own nurses, or even your mothers, who told you wonder-tales before you were old enough to read. Not so the village story-tellers in far-away parts of the world, who, like the Russian grandmother, still hand down to the children the stories they received from parents and grandparents. These sometimes lose the connection; they add little local touches—sweet wine from Zagorjé, going home to Varazdin, and the like—they give to certain incidents the setting with which they are themselves familiar; most artlessly they interweave such results of modern invention and discovery as are familiar to them, with such blank ignorance of physical facts as is shown by bringing in the sun, the moon, the winds, as persons. Many of you know how beautifully George Macdonald did this sort of thing in his story “Atthe Back of the North Wind,” and you perfectly well perceive the difference between that story and such a tale as, for instance, “So Born, So Die,” in this book. When you are older you will recognize that it is precisely the difference between literature and folk-lore.That many of these wonder-tales passed through Mohammedan minds on their way to the Russian grandmother, or her great-grandmother, is evident. “The Beg and the Fox” is a striking case in point; it almost seems as if the story ought, like the stories of the “Arabian Nights,” to close with the exclamation, “There is no God but God, the High, the Great!”The humor of these stories, however, is unmistakably Slavonic. There is a fine pungency—not Oriental, though Oriental humor is very pungent—in certain of the endings, “I have heard a lie, I have told a lie, and God give you joy!” or after a peculiarlyimpossible story, “Whoever believes it will be blessed!” The underlying pathos of the story of the Basil-plant suggests the exquisite sentiment of Hans Andersen’s “Steadfast Tin Soldier”; but its excessive simplicity, its dropped threads of thought, forbid the idea that it has been worked over by any more sophisticated mind than that of the Russian grandmother.In this simple-hearted story-teller I have tried to reproduce some lineaments of the peasant mother to whom, he tells us, Dr. Kraus owes his first impulse to folk-lore research. She was one of nine children of a poor pedler, brought up in a village of charcoal burners, deep in a Slavonian forest. She was illiterate, like our Russian grandmother, but like her intelligent and learned in the wonder-lore of her people. Her son pays her a lovely tribute in the preface to the first volume of his collection:She grew up like a flower in the hedge-row, among the simple peasant folk whose manners and spirit she made entirely her own. The villagers, who had a little education, therefore called her, contemptuously,baba vracana(the little old sorceress), but the illiterate peasants lovingly named hernasá baba Eva(our little mother Eve). But for once the villagers were right, my mother is a sorceress; else, how comes it that I so constantly fall under the spell of her enchantments ... I solemnly declare that if there is a true word in metempsychosis, and it is left to our choice to return to the present state of existence, nothing would so sorely tempt me back, no crown, not even that of learning—as the simple assurance of the All-Father that he would give me again the same dear mother, though I were to go begging with her through the world.L. S. H.New York, September 1, 1906.CONTENTSCHAPTERPAGEI.The Little Boy and the GrandmotherThe Wolf as a Roman41II.The Mother’s Fête-DayThe Sick Lion1412III.Saturday AfternoonWhiteling’s War with Isegrim1917IV.The Fire of ShavingsThe Bear, the Boar, and the Fox3231V.Frost-Bitten ToesThe Man, the Hare, the Fox, and the Bear3937VI.After SupperReinecke’s Revenge on Isegrim4949VII.The Snowy DayThe Bird, the Fox, and the Dog61The Fox and the Dove6660VIII.The Election MeetingThe Fox and the Hedgehog73Master Reinecke and Gockeling, the Cock77The Disappointed Bear7870IX.Cat and DogWhy the Dog Cannot Endure the Cat, nor the Cat the Mouse8482X.A Pleasant SurpriseThe Fox and the Badger90The Stag and the Hedgehog9388XI.The Patient Little BoyThe Cock and the Hen9797XII.The Sheep-PlayThe Beg and the Fox111109XIII.Getting ReadyThe Seven Stars129128XIV.Mother’s-MotherThe Vila of Muhlenberg143137XV.The Little Boy HomesickA Short Story157The Golden Apple-Tree and the Nine Peahens158The Wonderful Story186The Youth and the Vila190156XVI.The Little Boy SleeplessThe Vila in the Golden Castle197196XVII.Home AgainPrince Hedgehog205203XVIII.The BetrothalThe Deserter214212XIX.In the FieldsThe Hunter231The Watch-Tower between Earth and Heaven232The Bridge239228XX.Trinity-MondaySo Born, So Die245The Enchanted Lambs253The Knot-Grass260242XXI.Threshing-Time“The Three Eels”264262XXII.The KorowaiMorning-Dew275273XXIII.The Wedding“Young Neverfull”284The Basil-Plant288283XXIV.After the WeddingSteelpacha299298ILLUSTRATIONSThe old woman stole out to the tree, crept under the bed, and there hid herselfFrontispieceFACING PAGETook his place in the middle of the field, with his mouth wide open10Step into this sack, ... and I will carry you around the field46A shower of golden ducats fell, and lay upon the plates in three great heaps106The third hoop dropped off; the cask fell asunder, and a dragon flew out172Then the youth clambered down and took the Vila home194Drive the sheep slowly, one by one, to the other side240When he beheld the basil-plant he felt an extraordinary love for it288

THERUSSIAN GRANDMOTHER’SWONDER TALES

The old woman stole out to the tree, crept under the bed, and there hid herselfThe old woman stole out to the tree, crept under the bed, and there hid herself

The old woman stole out to the tree, crept under the bed, and there hid herself

Original Title Page.

The Russian Grandmother’s Wonder TalesBYLouise Seymour HoughtonILLUSTRATED BYW. T. BENDACHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONSNEW YORK

The Russian Grandmother’s Wonder Tales

BYLouise Seymour HoughtonILLUSTRATED BYW. T. BENDA

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONSNEW YORK

Copyright, 1906, byCHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONSPrinted in the United States of AmericaAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of Charles Scribner’s SonsThe Scribner Press publisher’s logo.

Printed in the United States of America

The Scribner Press publisher’s logo.

TOTHE FIVE GRANDCHILDRENPHILLIPS, SHERRILL, MARGARET, RUSSELL, AND CAROLINE

THE FIVE GRANDCHILDREN

PHILLIPS, SHERRILL, MARGARET, RUSSELL, AND CAROLINE

PREFACEThe stories which the Russian grandmother told will be found, with many others, in a German collection of “Tales and Legends of South Slavonia,” put forth in Vienna some twenty years ago by Dr. Friedrich Kraus, an ardent student of folk-lore. I have sketched in a slight background of peasant village life as it still exists in some parts of Southern Russia, because this is the proper setting of these stories; and I have been careful to clothe them as nearly as I might in the simple language in which they are told to-day by many a village fireside in South Slavonia.I frankly confess to having received from Mr. Joel Chandler Harris the suggestion which I have thus carried out. It was anunerring literary instinct which impelled him to put upon the lips ofUncle Remusand in the environment of a Southern country home of half a century ago the stories which he had found among the colored people of the South. Folk-tales, of whatever character, speak the more directly home to the hearts of children, whatever their own intellectual environment, in proportion as their setting is most nearly that which naturally belongs to them. Just as the highest value of the Homeric poems is their revelation of the heart of man, showing that in all ages and under all conditions heart answers to heart as face answers to face in water, so the folk-tales of all peoples in their native form have a higher function than simply to amuse, a higher than mere literary value; they are the child’s best introduction to the study of human nature.The children will not be the less interested in the stories which the Russian grandmothertold to the little peasant boy if they discover in her wonder-tales some analogies with stories that they already know. The adventures ofMaster ReineckeandMrs. Petz, ofIsegrimandLampe, will surely remind them of the Uncle Remus tales; they will find some suggestion ofKamer-es-zamanand thePrincess Budoorin the story of “The Beg and the Fox,” a hint of the “City of Brass,” in that of “The Vila in Muhlenberg,” a faint reflection of the “Arabian Nights” story of theFishermanin the tale of the “Three Eels,” and they will be especially pleased to recognize their old friend—andSindbad the Sailor’s—the roc, in the birdKumrikusha. The transformations which are so enchanting a feature of the “Arabian Nights” are here suggested in the story of “Steelpacha,” while the dress of feathers, most universal of folk-fancies, found among every people in the world, and most perfectly developed in theArabian “Story of Hassan of Bassora,” here appears in the tale of “The Golden Apple-tree and the Nine Pea-hens.”That these stories originated in that fountain-head of wonder-tales, the East, is very evident. They give more than a few suggestions of biblical story: the servant sent to announce the readiness of the feast (a courtesy of which I was myself the recipient in Syria last winter), the Delilah-like importunities by which the youngest sister lures fromSteelpachathe secret of his strength, are perhaps the most striking instances.Although this preface is not written for the children, yet as there are children who occasionally dip into prefaces, let me call the attention of such to the difference, both in style and point of view, between these stories and those which they have received from the brothers Grimm, from Hans Andersen, and from a host of later writers. All of these drew their material from the same sourcesas those of the Russian grandmother; but their cultivated minds have worked this material into exquisite literary forms. Not so your own nurses, or even your mothers, who told you wonder-tales before you were old enough to read. Not so the village story-tellers in far-away parts of the world, who, like the Russian grandmother, still hand down to the children the stories they received from parents and grandparents. These sometimes lose the connection; they add little local touches—sweet wine from Zagorjé, going home to Varazdin, and the like—they give to certain incidents the setting with which they are themselves familiar; most artlessly they interweave such results of modern invention and discovery as are familiar to them, with such blank ignorance of physical facts as is shown by bringing in the sun, the moon, the winds, as persons. Many of you know how beautifully George Macdonald did this sort of thing in his story “Atthe Back of the North Wind,” and you perfectly well perceive the difference between that story and such a tale as, for instance, “So Born, So Die,” in this book. When you are older you will recognize that it is precisely the difference between literature and folk-lore.That many of these wonder-tales passed through Mohammedan minds on their way to the Russian grandmother, or her great-grandmother, is evident. “The Beg and the Fox” is a striking case in point; it almost seems as if the story ought, like the stories of the “Arabian Nights,” to close with the exclamation, “There is no God but God, the High, the Great!”The humor of these stories, however, is unmistakably Slavonic. There is a fine pungency—not Oriental, though Oriental humor is very pungent—in certain of the endings, “I have heard a lie, I have told a lie, and God give you joy!” or after a peculiarlyimpossible story, “Whoever believes it will be blessed!” The underlying pathos of the story of the Basil-plant suggests the exquisite sentiment of Hans Andersen’s “Steadfast Tin Soldier”; but its excessive simplicity, its dropped threads of thought, forbid the idea that it has been worked over by any more sophisticated mind than that of the Russian grandmother.In this simple-hearted story-teller I have tried to reproduce some lineaments of the peasant mother to whom, he tells us, Dr. Kraus owes his first impulse to folk-lore research. She was one of nine children of a poor pedler, brought up in a village of charcoal burners, deep in a Slavonian forest. She was illiterate, like our Russian grandmother, but like her intelligent and learned in the wonder-lore of her people. Her son pays her a lovely tribute in the preface to the first volume of his collection:She grew up like a flower in the hedge-row, among the simple peasant folk whose manners and spirit she made entirely her own. The villagers, who had a little education, therefore called her, contemptuously,baba vracana(the little old sorceress), but the illiterate peasants lovingly named hernasá baba Eva(our little mother Eve). But for once the villagers were right, my mother is a sorceress; else, how comes it that I so constantly fall under the spell of her enchantments ... I solemnly declare that if there is a true word in metempsychosis, and it is left to our choice to return to the present state of existence, nothing would so sorely tempt me back, no crown, not even that of learning—as the simple assurance of the All-Father that he would give me again the same dear mother, though I were to go begging with her through the world.L. S. H.New York, September 1, 1906.

PREFACE

The stories which the Russian grandmother told will be found, with many others, in a German collection of “Tales and Legends of South Slavonia,” put forth in Vienna some twenty years ago by Dr. Friedrich Kraus, an ardent student of folk-lore. I have sketched in a slight background of peasant village life as it still exists in some parts of Southern Russia, because this is the proper setting of these stories; and I have been careful to clothe them as nearly as I might in the simple language in which they are told to-day by many a village fireside in South Slavonia.I frankly confess to having received from Mr. Joel Chandler Harris the suggestion which I have thus carried out. It was anunerring literary instinct which impelled him to put upon the lips ofUncle Remusand in the environment of a Southern country home of half a century ago the stories which he had found among the colored people of the South. Folk-tales, of whatever character, speak the more directly home to the hearts of children, whatever their own intellectual environment, in proportion as their setting is most nearly that which naturally belongs to them. Just as the highest value of the Homeric poems is their revelation of the heart of man, showing that in all ages and under all conditions heart answers to heart as face answers to face in water, so the folk-tales of all peoples in their native form have a higher function than simply to amuse, a higher than mere literary value; they are the child’s best introduction to the study of human nature.The children will not be the less interested in the stories which the Russian grandmothertold to the little peasant boy if they discover in her wonder-tales some analogies with stories that they already know. The adventures ofMaster ReineckeandMrs. Petz, ofIsegrimandLampe, will surely remind them of the Uncle Remus tales; they will find some suggestion ofKamer-es-zamanand thePrincess Budoorin the story of “The Beg and the Fox,” a hint of the “City of Brass,” in that of “The Vila in Muhlenberg,” a faint reflection of the “Arabian Nights” story of theFishermanin the tale of the “Three Eels,” and they will be especially pleased to recognize their old friend—andSindbad the Sailor’s—the roc, in the birdKumrikusha. The transformations which are so enchanting a feature of the “Arabian Nights” are here suggested in the story of “Steelpacha,” while the dress of feathers, most universal of folk-fancies, found among every people in the world, and most perfectly developed in theArabian “Story of Hassan of Bassora,” here appears in the tale of “The Golden Apple-tree and the Nine Pea-hens.”That these stories originated in that fountain-head of wonder-tales, the East, is very evident. They give more than a few suggestions of biblical story: the servant sent to announce the readiness of the feast (a courtesy of which I was myself the recipient in Syria last winter), the Delilah-like importunities by which the youngest sister lures fromSteelpachathe secret of his strength, are perhaps the most striking instances.Although this preface is not written for the children, yet as there are children who occasionally dip into prefaces, let me call the attention of such to the difference, both in style and point of view, between these stories and those which they have received from the brothers Grimm, from Hans Andersen, and from a host of later writers. All of these drew their material from the same sourcesas those of the Russian grandmother; but their cultivated minds have worked this material into exquisite literary forms. Not so your own nurses, or even your mothers, who told you wonder-tales before you were old enough to read. Not so the village story-tellers in far-away parts of the world, who, like the Russian grandmother, still hand down to the children the stories they received from parents and grandparents. These sometimes lose the connection; they add little local touches—sweet wine from Zagorjé, going home to Varazdin, and the like—they give to certain incidents the setting with which they are themselves familiar; most artlessly they interweave such results of modern invention and discovery as are familiar to them, with such blank ignorance of physical facts as is shown by bringing in the sun, the moon, the winds, as persons. Many of you know how beautifully George Macdonald did this sort of thing in his story “Atthe Back of the North Wind,” and you perfectly well perceive the difference between that story and such a tale as, for instance, “So Born, So Die,” in this book. When you are older you will recognize that it is precisely the difference between literature and folk-lore.That many of these wonder-tales passed through Mohammedan minds on their way to the Russian grandmother, or her great-grandmother, is evident. “The Beg and the Fox” is a striking case in point; it almost seems as if the story ought, like the stories of the “Arabian Nights,” to close with the exclamation, “There is no God but God, the High, the Great!”The humor of these stories, however, is unmistakably Slavonic. There is a fine pungency—not Oriental, though Oriental humor is very pungent—in certain of the endings, “I have heard a lie, I have told a lie, and God give you joy!” or after a peculiarlyimpossible story, “Whoever believes it will be blessed!” The underlying pathos of the story of the Basil-plant suggests the exquisite sentiment of Hans Andersen’s “Steadfast Tin Soldier”; but its excessive simplicity, its dropped threads of thought, forbid the idea that it has been worked over by any more sophisticated mind than that of the Russian grandmother.In this simple-hearted story-teller I have tried to reproduce some lineaments of the peasant mother to whom, he tells us, Dr. Kraus owes his first impulse to folk-lore research. She was one of nine children of a poor pedler, brought up in a village of charcoal burners, deep in a Slavonian forest. She was illiterate, like our Russian grandmother, but like her intelligent and learned in the wonder-lore of her people. Her son pays her a lovely tribute in the preface to the first volume of his collection:She grew up like a flower in the hedge-row, among the simple peasant folk whose manners and spirit she made entirely her own. The villagers, who had a little education, therefore called her, contemptuously,baba vracana(the little old sorceress), but the illiterate peasants lovingly named hernasá baba Eva(our little mother Eve). But for once the villagers were right, my mother is a sorceress; else, how comes it that I so constantly fall under the spell of her enchantments ... I solemnly declare that if there is a true word in metempsychosis, and it is left to our choice to return to the present state of existence, nothing would so sorely tempt me back, no crown, not even that of learning—as the simple assurance of the All-Father that he would give me again the same dear mother, though I were to go begging with her through the world.L. S. H.New York, September 1, 1906.

I frankly confess to having received from Mr. Joel Chandler Harris the suggestion which I have thus carried out. It was anunerring literary instinct which impelled him to put upon the lips ofUncle Remusand in the environment of a Southern country home of half a century ago the stories which he had found among the colored people of the South. Folk-tales, of whatever character, speak the more directly home to the hearts of children, whatever their own intellectual environment, in proportion as their setting is most nearly that which naturally belongs to them. Just as the highest value of the Homeric poems is their revelation of the heart of man, showing that in all ages and under all conditions heart answers to heart as face answers to face in water, so the folk-tales of all peoples in their native form have a higher function than simply to amuse, a higher than mere literary value; they are the child’s best introduction to the study of human nature.

The children will not be the less interested in the stories which the Russian grandmothertold to the little peasant boy if they discover in her wonder-tales some analogies with stories that they already know. The adventures ofMaster ReineckeandMrs. Petz, ofIsegrimandLampe, will surely remind them of the Uncle Remus tales; they will find some suggestion ofKamer-es-zamanand thePrincess Budoorin the story of “The Beg and the Fox,” a hint of the “City of Brass,” in that of “The Vila in Muhlenberg,” a faint reflection of the “Arabian Nights” story of theFishermanin the tale of the “Three Eels,” and they will be especially pleased to recognize their old friend—andSindbad the Sailor’s—the roc, in the birdKumrikusha. The transformations which are so enchanting a feature of the “Arabian Nights” are here suggested in the story of “Steelpacha,” while the dress of feathers, most universal of folk-fancies, found among every people in the world, and most perfectly developed in theArabian “Story of Hassan of Bassora,” here appears in the tale of “The Golden Apple-tree and the Nine Pea-hens.”

That these stories originated in that fountain-head of wonder-tales, the East, is very evident. They give more than a few suggestions of biblical story: the servant sent to announce the readiness of the feast (a courtesy of which I was myself the recipient in Syria last winter), the Delilah-like importunities by which the youngest sister lures fromSteelpachathe secret of his strength, are perhaps the most striking instances.

Although this preface is not written for the children, yet as there are children who occasionally dip into prefaces, let me call the attention of such to the difference, both in style and point of view, between these stories and those which they have received from the brothers Grimm, from Hans Andersen, and from a host of later writers. All of these drew their material from the same sourcesas those of the Russian grandmother; but their cultivated minds have worked this material into exquisite literary forms. Not so your own nurses, or even your mothers, who told you wonder-tales before you were old enough to read. Not so the village story-tellers in far-away parts of the world, who, like the Russian grandmother, still hand down to the children the stories they received from parents and grandparents. These sometimes lose the connection; they add little local touches—sweet wine from Zagorjé, going home to Varazdin, and the like—they give to certain incidents the setting with which they are themselves familiar; most artlessly they interweave such results of modern invention and discovery as are familiar to them, with such blank ignorance of physical facts as is shown by bringing in the sun, the moon, the winds, as persons. Many of you know how beautifully George Macdonald did this sort of thing in his story “Atthe Back of the North Wind,” and you perfectly well perceive the difference between that story and such a tale as, for instance, “So Born, So Die,” in this book. When you are older you will recognize that it is precisely the difference between literature and folk-lore.

That many of these wonder-tales passed through Mohammedan minds on their way to the Russian grandmother, or her great-grandmother, is evident. “The Beg and the Fox” is a striking case in point; it almost seems as if the story ought, like the stories of the “Arabian Nights,” to close with the exclamation, “There is no God but God, the High, the Great!”

The humor of these stories, however, is unmistakably Slavonic. There is a fine pungency—not Oriental, though Oriental humor is very pungent—in certain of the endings, “I have heard a lie, I have told a lie, and God give you joy!” or after a peculiarlyimpossible story, “Whoever believes it will be blessed!” The underlying pathos of the story of the Basil-plant suggests the exquisite sentiment of Hans Andersen’s “Steadfast Tin Soldier”; but its excessive simplicity, its dropped threads of thought, forbid the idea that it has been worked over by any more sophisticated mind than that of the Russian grandmother.

In this simple-hearted story-teller I have tried to reproduce some lineaments of the peasant mother to whom, he tells us, Dr. Kraus owes his first impulse to folk-lore research. She was one of nine children of a poor pedler, brought up in a village of charcoal burners, deep in a Slavonian forest. She was illiterate, like our Russian grandmother, but like her intelligent and learned in the wonder-lore of her people. Her son pays her a lovely tribute in the preface to the first volume of his collection:

She grew up like a flower in the hedge-row, among the simple peasant folk whose manners and spirit she made entirely her own. The villagers, who had a little education, therefore called her, contemptuously,baba vracana(the little old sorceress), but the illiterate peasants lovingly named hernasá baba Eva(our little mother Eve). But for once the villagers were right, my mother is a sorceress; else, how comes it that I so constantly fall under the spell of her enchantments ... I solemnly declare that if there is a true word in metempsychosis, and it is left to our choice to return to the present state of existence, nothing would so sorely tempt me back, no crown, not even that of learning—as the simple assurance of the All-Father that he would give me again the same dear mother, though I were to go begging with her through the world.

L. S. H.

New York, September 1, 1906.

CONTENTSCHAPTERPAGEI.The Little Boy and the GrandmotherThe Wolf as a Roman41II.The Mother’s Fête-DayThe Sick Lion1412III.Saturday AfternoonWhiteling’s War with Isegrim1917IV.The Fire of ShavingsThe Bear, the Boar, and the Fox3231V.Frost-Bitten ToesThe Man, the Hare, the Fox, and the Bear3937VI.After SupperReinecke’s Revenge on Isegrim4949VII.The Snowy DayThe Bird, the Fox, and the Dog61The Fox and the Dove6660VIII.The Election MeetingThe Fox and the Hedgehog73Master Reinecke and Gockeling, the Cock77The Disappointed Bear7870IX.Cat and DogWhy the Dog Cannot Endure the Cat, nor the Cat the Mouse8482X.A Pleasant SurpriseThe Fox and the Badger90The Stag and the Hedgehog9388XI.The Patient Little BoyThe Cock and the Hen9797XII.The Sheep-PlayThe Beg and the Fox111109XIII.Getting ReadyThe Seven Stars129128XIV.Mother’s-MotherThe Vila of Muhlenberg143137XV.The Little Boy HomesickA Short Story157The Golden Apple-Tree and the Nine Peahens158The Wonderful Story186The Youth and the Vila190156XVI.The Little Boy SleeplessThe Vila in the Golden Castle197196XVII.Home AgainPrince Hedgehog205203XVIII.The BetrothalThe Deserter214212XIX.In the FieldsThe Hunter231The Watch-Tower between Earth and Heaven232The Bridge239228XX.Trinity-MondaySo Born, So Die245The Enchanted Lambs253The Knot-Grass260242XXI.Threshing-Time“The Three Eels”264262XXII.The KorowaiMorning-Dew275273XXIII.The Wedding“Young Neverfull”284The Basil-Plant288283XXIV.After the WeddingSteelpacha299298

ILLUSTRATIONSThe old woman stole out to the tree, crept under the bed, and there hid herselfFrontispieceFACING PAGETook his place in the middle of the field, with his mouth wide open10Step into this sack, ... and I will carry you around the field46A shower of golden ducats fell, and lay upon the plates in three great heaps106The third hoop dropped off; the cask fell asunder, and a dragon flew out172Then the youth clambered down and took the Vila home194Drive the sheep slowly, one by one, to the other side240When he beheld the basil-plant he felt an extraordinary love for it288

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