Polis Reading Edition
The Green Fairy Book
edited by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford
Stories1892
- 1The Blue Bird56 MinA widowed king marries again, and his new queen means to see her own ugly daughter married before his beautiful one.
- 2The Half-Chick9 MinA hen’s youngest chick hatches looking as if he had been cut in two, and he is determined to leave the farmyard and see the King in Madrid.
- 3The Story of Caliph Stork24 MinA caliph buys a box of black powder with a scroll explaining that it will turn him into any animal he likes, so long as he does not laugh while he is one.
- 4The Enchanted Watch11 MinA rich man has given a feast for each of his two elder sons on their return from three years’ travel, and now the youngest, the one the family thinks a fool, asks to go too.
- 5Rosanella12 MinWhen the Queen of the Fairies dies, two fairies with equal claims to her throne agree that whichever shows the world the greater wonder will rule.
- 6Sylvain and Jocosa16 MinTwo children whose parents have long forgotten why their families quarrel are never apart, and a fairy has taken them under her protection.
- 7Fairy Gifts9 MinA fairy who brings up royal children in her palace gives each one whatever gift they ask for when they leave, and before a favourite princess chooses hers, the fairy sends her to visit some who chose before her.
- 8Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla34 MinA queen who has never troubled herself about anything but her own amusement walls up her four-year-old daughter for being prettier than she is, and puts it about that the child is too ugly and troublesome to love.
- 9Prince Featherhead and the Princess Celandine32 MinA king who gave away his treasure until a neighbour took the kingdom now lives contentedly in a valley, teaching the fish he catches to talk and selling them in the town, while a fairy brings up his small son on cakes.
- 10The Three Little Pigs12 MinAn old mother pig near her end asks each of her three children what she should build their new house from, knowing that a fox will come for them as soon as she is dead.
- 11Heart of Ice65 MinA fairy kept waiting at a baby prince’s christening declares that he will grow up to be nothing but a mannikin.
- 12The Enchanted Ring17 MinA young man turned out of his home over his elder brother’s lie is given a ring that can make him invisible or give him the shape of his country’s prince.
- 13The Snuff-box12 MinA young man who spends his life travelling finds a snuff-box that asks him, in Spanish, what he wants.
- 14The Golden Blackbird11 MinA great lord with three sons falls ill, and a foreign doctor says that only a bird called the Golden Blackbird can cure him.
- 15The Little Soldier36 MinA small soldier walking home from the war, with no match to light his pipe, comes on an empty old castle with its door open and a fire blazing inside.
- 16The Magic Swan9 MinA weak youth, blamed by his two elder brothers for everything that goes wrong, is crying in a wood when a little old woman asks him what the matter is.
- 17The Dirty Shepherdess9 MinA King promises his kingdom to whichever of his two daughters best proves how much she loves him.
- 18The Enchanted Snake18 MinA peasant woman who longs for a child is asked by a little snake, found in her husband’s brushwood, to be its mother.
- 19The Biter Bit17 MinThree rogues at a market watch a rich old miser buy a mule and plan to have it off him before the day is out.
- 20King Kojata27 MinA childless king who bends to drink at a well finds his beard held fast by a green-eyed creature with claws, which will let him go only for a promise.
- 21Prince Fickle and Fair Helena12 MinA girl is handed twelve pounds of mixed feathers by her cruel stepmother and told to sort them all before evening, or be punished.
- 22Puddocky14 MinA poor woman’s daughter will eat almost nothing but parsley, and her mother steals it for her every night from an old witch’s garden.
- 23The Story of Hok Lee and the Dwarfs10 MinA man in a small Chinese town, respectable by day and a housebreaker by night, is told by a neighbour on the way to market that one side of his face has swollen to twice the size of the other.
- 24The Story of the Three Bears8 MinWhile three bears walk in the wood and wait for their porridge to cool, a little old woman finds their door unlatched.
- 25Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida54 MinTwo royal cousins, one too lazy to choose her own dresses and the other too restless to stay with anything, grow up together in one palace and cannot bear each other.
- 26Little One-eye, Little Two-eyes, and Little Three-eyes16 MinA woman has three daughters: one with a single eye in her forehead, one with three, and one with two like everybody else, and it is the ordinary one the household cannot bear.
- 27Jorinde and Joringel6 MinAn old woman lives alone in a castle in a thick wood, where any young man who comes within a hundred paces of the walls is fixed to the spot and any pretty girl is turned into a bird; she keeps seven thousand of them in cages.
- 28Allerleirauh; or, the Many-furred Creature13 MinA dying queen makes her husband promise that he will make no one queen after her unless she is just as beautiful, with hair just as golden.
- 29The Twelve Huntsmen7 MinA King's son engaged to a Princess he loves is called away to his dying father, and leaves her his ring with a promise to come back for her when he is King.
- 30Spindle, Shuttle, and Needle7 MinA girl of fifteen is left a cottage, a spindle, a shuttle and a needle by the godmother who raised her, and must make her living with them alone.
- 31The Crystal Coffin13 MinA young tailor lost in a forest at night knocks at a hut of reeds, and the old man inside wants nothing to do with tramps.
- 32The Three Snake-leaves9 MinA king’s daughter will marry only a man who promises to be buried alive with her if she dies first, and a poor soldier who has just won a battle for her father wants to marry her.
- 33The Riddle7 MinA king’s son and his servant, lost in a forest at nightfall, are warned by a young girl not to spend the night in her stepmother’s house, because the stepmother is a witch.
- 34Jack my Hedgehog13 MinA rich farmer who shouted that he would have a child even if it were only a hedgehog now has a son who is a hedgehog from the waist up.
- 35The Golden Lads13 MinA poor fisherman has netted a golden fish that talks, and it offers him a castle and a cupboard full of food if he will throw it back and never tell anybody where they came from.
- 36The White Snake10 MinA king famous for knowing the most secret matters has a covered dish brought to him every day after dinner, and he never lifts the cover until he is alone.
- 37The Story of a Clever Tailor8 MinA proud princess will marry whoever answers her riddle and has the rest driven out of town, and three tailors set out to try, the youngest of them lazy and hardly able to sew.
- 38The Golden Mermaid21 MinA king's golden apples are stolen the moment they ripen, year after year, and the last son he sends after the thief is the one the whole town laughs at.
- 39The War of the Wolf and the Fox9 MinA man means to drown his old cat and hang his old dog because both are too old to be useful, and his wife wants to save them.
- 40The Story of the Fisherman and his Wife18 MinA fisherman hauls a large flounder up on his line, and the flounder asks him to let it go.
- 41The Three Musicians16 MinThree travelling musicians hear in a village inn that an uninhabited castle nearby holds hidden treasure, and that anyone who forces his way in comes out more dead than alive.
- 42The Three Dogs11 MinA dying shepherd leaves a son and a daughter three sheep and a small house, and one instruction, which is not to quarrel over how they divide them.