The Crimson Fairy Book
edited by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford
Stories1903
- 1Lovely Ilonka9 MinA king’s son is told he may not marry until he has done some great deed, so he goes out into the world in search of three bulrushes.
- 2Lucky Luck18 MinA prince forbidden to marry until his father comes home from a war rides out to find a bride anyway, with one servant who refuses to be called away from him.
- 3The Hairy Man9 MinEvery night two ricks burn in a king’s fields, and he has put ninety-nine people to death for failing to catch whoever sets the fires.
- 4To your Good Health!11 MinA king is so mighty that the whole country must say ‘To your good health!’ whenever he sneezes, and one shepherd with staring eyes will not say it.
- 5The Story of the Seven Simons28 MinA king who owns forty times forty cities cannot find a bride to his mind, and he asks some visiting merchants whether they know of a princess as clever and as handsome as he is.
- 6The Language of Beasts11 MinA wood is burning, and a shepherd hears something hissing inside it and walks towards the sound instead of away.
- 7The Boy who could keep a Secret26 MinA poor widow's son wears a scabbard that grows as he does, and in the garden a sword is growing to fit it.
- 8The Prince and the Dragon19 MinAn emperor’s sons go out hunting one after another, and each time a hare leads the hunter to the same mill by a river.
- 9Little Wildrose21 MinA man of a hundred and a wife as old have never had a child, and he goes into the world with money and food to find one, saying he will not come home unless he does.
- 10Tiidu the Piper31 MinA lazy boy who refuses to be anybody’s servant is playing his flute when an old man stops to ask what trade he means to follow.
- 11Paperarello17 MinA boy of twelve has been made king in place of his mother, who hates him and is looking for a way to be rid of him.
- 12The Gifts of the Magician16 MinAn old man living alone with his son in a forest hut has forbidden the boy to shoot the birds nesting in the birch trees nearby.
- 13The Strong Prince13 MinA king who cannot fall asleep unless a full flask of wine is tied to his bedpost is drinking his kingdom into ruin.
- 14The Treasure Seeker38 MinSome shepherds sitting late in an inn kitchen are telling the strangest things that happened to them when they were young, and a white-haired one says he can beat them all.
- 15The Cottager and his Cat8 MinA miser’s son dreams that he must give half his dead father’s fortune to the poor and throw the other half into the sea, keeping only what floats.
- 16The Prince who would seek Immortality24 MinA gloomy prince home from his travels cannot stop thinking that everybody, kings included, must die.
- 17The Stone-cutter7 MinA stone-cutter who has asked for nothing better than what he has, and who shakes his head at talk of a spirit living in the mountain, is carrying a gravestone up to a rich man's house.
- 18The Gold-bearded Man23 MinA dying king makes his wife promise that she will never marry again and will live for their young son alone.
- 19Tritill, Litill, and the Birds16 MinA king has promised his vanished daughter's hand to whoever can bring her back, and an old man's youngest son has always had to give way to his two brothers.
- 20The Three Robes22 MinA dying queen makes her husband promise that if he marries again, his new wife will be a princess from a great kingdom and not a woman from some small state or distant island.
- 21The Six Hungry Beasts17 MinA man and his wife live far from any neighbours, and every night a marten comes to their poultry yard and carries off one of their fowls.
- 22How the Beggar Boy turned into Count Piro15 MinA lazy boy who lives on the pears of a tree that fruits all year round is asked by a passing fox for a basketful, with a promise that it will bring him luck.
- 23The Rogue and the Herdsman18 MinA young man so lazy he will not even mind his family’s one cow is sent out into the world by his father to seek his fortune.
- 24Eisenkopf18 MinA poor boy sent out to earn his keep is paid for a year’s work, which lasted only three days, with a single nut.
- 25The Death of Abu Nowas and of his Wife10 MinA Sultan's jester comes weeping into the hall of the palace to tell his master that his wife has died.
- 26Motikatika9 MinA sick woman who will eat nothing but pure wild honey keeps sending her husband back to the forest for more.
- 27Niels and the Giants24 MinOn a Jutland moor a sheep-farmer's younger son would rather shoot than herd, and gets so good at it that he is talked about in places he has never been, though people say there is not much else to him.
- 28Shepherd Paul15 MinA shepherd’s foundling can pull up oak trees like weeds by the age of fourteen, and he leaves home to try his luck in the world.
- 29How the wicked Tanuki was punished7 MinIn a forest emptied by hunters, a tanuki, his wife the fox and their son have survived by never taking a risk, and now there is nothing left to eat.
- 30The Crab and the Monkey6 MinA crab who keeps the tidiest hole on the mountain has found a handful of dropped rice, and a monkey offers her a fruit kernel for half of it.
- 31The Horse Gullfaxi and the Sword Gunnföder20 MinA king's son who will not go out hunting is hidden under his stepmother's bed, and lies there while the floor begins to shake.
- 32The Story of the Sham Prince, or the Ambitious Tailor29 MinA vain tailor in Alexandria, whose master says he looks like a prince, is left alone one night with a royal robe that has come in for altering.
- 33The Colony of Cats16 MinIn a town where a woman down to her last penny says she will go and live with the cats, a girl whose mother beats her takes the saying literally.
- 34How to find out a True Friend19 MinA queen who once vowed that her son would make a pilgrimage at eighteen gives him three apples as he leaves, with one instruction about how to use them.
- 35Clever Maria9 MinA merchant called away by the king leaves each of his three daughters a pot of basil, and tells them the pots will tell him what has happened while he is gone.
- 36The Magic Kettle7 MinAn old man in the Japanese mountains, proud of his spotless little house, finds a rusty iron kettle in a corner, with no idea how it got there.