Polis Reading Edition
The Olive Fairy Book
edited by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford
Stories1907
- 1Madschun14 MinA bald, idle young man who has never stuck at a trade sees a sultan’s daughter ride past his mother’s cottage and decides he will marry her and nobody else.
- 2The Blue Parrot27 MinA young king who shows no wish to marry is shown a small portrait of a princess by an ambassador who has decided to make the match.
- 3Geirlaug the King’s Daughter25 MinA baby prince dropped by a dragon into a neighbouring king’s garden is brought up beside that king’s daughter, because the two kings have quarrelled and nobody sends him home.
- 4The Story of Little King Loc34 MinA countess who has woken to the white rose that means she is about to die asks her closest friend, a duchess with a baby daughter, to bring up her little son.
- 5'A Long-bow Story'8 MinA greedy money-lender walking with a farmer proposes a wager: each tells the wildest story he can, and the first to doubt the other’s story pays a hundred rupees.
- 6Jackal or Tiger?27 MinA king and queen lying awake on a hot night quarrel over whether a howl outside their palace came from a tiger or a jackal, and the king bets his kingdom on the answer.
- 7The Comb and the Collar27 MinA jealous queen keeps her beautiful stepdaughter in ugly clothes and paint, and envoys are on their way to court with a collar that only a lady beautiful enough can unlock.
- 8The Thanksgiving of the Wazir8 MinA king cuts off the tip of his finger, and his chief minister tells him that is good news.
- 9Samba the Coward17 MinA king's only son has been frightened of everything since he could walk, and the men around his father keep saying he will grow out of it.
- 10Kupti and Imani20 MinA king asks his two daughters whether they are content to leave their lives and their fortunes in his hands, and the younger says that if she had the chance she would make her own.
- 11The Strange Adventures of Little Maia24 MinA woman living alone in a winter forest pays a stranger twelve shillings for a single barley corn, and plants it in a flower-pot.
- 12Diamond cut Diamond17 MinA merchant coming home rich after twelve years away is warned by a shopkeeper that the road ahead is full of thieves.
- 13The Green Knight25 MinA dying queen asks her husband to promise that he will give their daughter whatever she asks for, whether he wishes to or not.
- 14The Five Wise Words of the Guru19 MinA young man whose step-mother scolds him from morning to night decides to leave home, and calls on his old teacher to say goodbye before he goes.
- 15The Golden-headed Fish16 MinA blind king is told that his sight can be restored by an ointment made from the blood of one particular fish, somewhere in the sea.
- 16Dorani14 MinA prince out hunting finds a lock of golden hair that smells of roses floating down a river in a folded leaf.
- 17The Satin Surgeon22 MinA young emperor goes in disguise to a neighbouring king’s court to see which of the king’s two daughters he could love.
- 18The Billy Goat and the King7 MinA king who understands animals, but will turn to stone if he ever repeats what they say, laughs at two ants quarrelling beside his dinner, and his wife demands to know why.
- 19The Story of Zoulvisia29 MinA young king whose six elder brothers each went hunting on a desert mountain and never came back sets out to hunt there himself.
- 20Grasp all, Lose all15 MinA poor oil-seller who owes a banker three hundred rupees, and is shouted at for it every evening, decides to run away and leave his wife and daughter behind.
- 21The Fate of the Turtle9 MinA drought is drying up a small lake that two wild ducks share with an old turtle, and the ducks must fly away or die of thirst.
- 22The Snake Prince18 MinA poor old woman with nothing left but a handful of flour finds a deadly snake in her brass pot, and carries it home meaning to let it bite her.
- 23The Prince and Princess in the Forest33 MinA Danish prince and his newly widowed mother are lost in a dark forest at nightfall, with nothing left to eat.
- 24The Clever Weaver6 MinAn envoy from a feared emperor draws a circle on the floor round a king’s throne, and will not say a word about what it means.
- 25The Boy who found Fear at last15 MinA boy who has never felt fear, and cannot understand why a storm makes his mother shiver, resolves to go out into the world and look for it.
- 26He Wins who Waits20 MinA king's only daughter turns down the husband he has chosen for her and has him summon every young man in the kingdom, so that she can give a golden apple to the one she wants.
- 27The Steel Cane7 MinA lonely old woman, weak after an illness, decides to adopt an orphaned shepherd’s boy so that she will have somebody to talk to.
- 28The Punishment of the Fairy Gangana27 MinA king and queen rule a country so small you could walk round it in a day, where everybody is allowed to offer advice on the government and almost no law ever gets made, or obeyed.
- 29The Silent Princess35 MinA pasha’s idle son, after breaking an old woman’s pitcher three times with his golden ball, is cursed to fall in love with a princess who never speaks.