Polis Reading Edition
The Red Fairy Book
edited by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford and Lancelot Speed
Stories1890
- 1The Twelve Dancing Princesses23 MinAn orphan cowherd who has always dreamed of marrying a princess is told by a lady in a dream to go to a castle where he will marry one.
- 2The Princess Mayblossom39 MinA queen who has lost every child but one is choosing a nurse for her baby daughter, and the ugly stranger she turns away hides in a hollow tree to watch.
- 3Soria Moria Castle26 MinAn idle boy who has run away from every master he was sent to is lying becalmed on a ship off a strange coast that nobody aboard knows.
- 4The Death of Koshchei the Deathless23 MinA prince has been told by his dying parents to marry his three sisters to the first suitors who come, whoever they turn out to be.
- 5The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen30 MinA dying queen asks her husband to keep their three sons in a tower on an island until they are grown, so that whoever he marries next will have no power over them.
- 6The Master Thief37 MinA farmer with nothing to leave his sons sends them off down three roads, and the youngest loses his way in a storm and walks towards the only light in the wood.
- 7Brother and Sister16 MinA brother and sister whose stepmother beats them every day, and feeds them worse than the dog under her table, run away together into the wide world.
- 8Princess Rosette35 MinAsked what is going to happen to a newborn princess, the fairies at her christening say they have left their book of magic at home and will come back another day.
- 9The Enchanted Pig29 MinA king going off to war hands his three daughters the keys to every room in the palace, and names the one room they must never open.
- 10The Norka15 MinA huge beast breaks into a king’s deer park every night to eat the animals, and the king promises half his kingdom to whichever of his three sons can kill it.
- 11The Wonderful Birch23 MinA girl’s mother has been turned into a black sheep by a witch, who now lives in the family’s house looking exactly like the mother.
- 12Jack and the Beanstalk25 MinA poor widow’s son, sent to market to sell the family cow, meets a butcher who says the beans in his hand are worth a great deal.
- 13The Little Good Mouse28 MinA happy king and queen rule a kingdom called the Joyous Land, and a jealous neighbour who beheads anybody he sees smiling is marching an army against them.
- 14Graciosa and Percinet40 MinA rich, one-eyed old duchess cannot bear to hear everybody at court praising a king’s pretty daughter.
- 15The Three Princesses of Whiteland15 MinA head rises out of the sea and offers a fisherman who has caught nothing all day as many fish as he likes, in return for whatever his wife shows him when he gets home.
- 16The Voice of Death7 MinA man who has at last grown rich is so afraid of dying and leaving his possessions behind that he sets out to find a country where nobody dies.
- 17The Six Sillies5 MinAt thirty-seven, a girl so foolish that nobody has ever wanted to marry her at last has a young man come to court her.
- 18Kari Woodengown30 MinA king’s daughter, starved by her stepmother and sent out to herd the cattle, is asked by a great blue bull in the herd why she is always crying.
- 19Drakestail11 MinA little duck who has lent his hundred crowns to a spendthrift King sets off, singing, to ask for the money back.
- 20The Ratcatcher12 MinA German town that has tried everything against a plague of rats is visited by a stranger with a bagpipe, who says he can clear every rat before night.
- 21The True History of Little Goldenhood8 MinA little peasant girl in a gold hood that her grandmother says is made of a ray of sunshine is sent alone through a big wood to take the old woman a piece of cake.
- 22The Golden Branch42 MinA very ugly prince who will not marry the ugly princess his father has chosen is locked in a tower that is kept for rebellious princes and has stood unused for two hundred years.
- 23The Three Dwarfs13 MinA girl whose stepmother hates her is sent out into a frozen wood in winter, in a dress made of paper, to fill a basket with strawberries.
- 24Dapplegrim26 MinA youngest son who has been away from home for a year comes back to find his parents dead and everything shared out among his brothers, except twelve mares grazing on the hills.
- 25The Enchanted Canary32 MinThe thin son of a very fat lord in Flanders refuses to marry any of the pink-and-white girls at home, because he wants a bride with golden skin.
- 26The Twelve Brothers13 MinA King decrees that if his thirteenth child turns out to be a girl, her twelve elder brothers must all be put to death so that she alone will inherit the kingdom.
- 27Rapunzel9 MinA childless woman looks out of her window into a feared witch’s walled garden and longs so badly for the rampion growing there that she begins to waste away.
- 28The Nettle Spinner13 MinA cruel lord out hunting stops at a lonely forest cottage and finds a beautiful girl spinning hemp at the door.
- 29Farmer Weatherbeard19 MinA woman wants her only son taught to be master of all masters, and a stranger who says he can do it drives off with the boy straight up into the air.
- 30Mother Holle8 MinA cruel stepmother sends a girl down into a well after her dropped spindle, with orders not to come home again without it.
- 31Minnikin35 MinTwin baby boys born into a poor and crowded hut can talk from the moment they are born, and both set out at once to seek their fortune in the world.
- 32Bushy Bride15 MinA bullied stepdaughter sent to the brook for water finds three hideous heads rising out of the stream, asking to be washed, brushed and kissed.
- 33Snowdrop20 MinA vain Queen asks her magic mirror who is fairest in the land, and the mirror names her own stepdaughter.
- 34The Golden Goose11 MinA youngest son whom everybody mocks as Dullhead meets a hungry little grey man in the forest, with nothing to offer him but a cinder-cake and sour beer.
- 35The Seven Foals17 MinA king promises his daughter and half his kingdom to whoever can watch his seven foals for a whole day and tell him what they eat and drink, and he threatens to cut three red stripes in the back of anyone who fails.
- 36The Marvellous Musician7 MinA fiddler goes into the wood looking for company, and every creature that answers the music wants a lesson.
- 37The Story of Sigurd20 MinAn old king dying on a battlefield tells his young wife that she will bear a son who will avenge him, and that the pieces of his broken sword must be kept for that son.