Polis Reading Edition
The Violet Fairy Book
edited by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford
Stories1901
- 1A Tale of the Tontlawald27 MinThere is a stretch of moorland that no one will set foot on, where a woodcutter once put his axe to a tree and it bled and screamed.
- 2The finest Liar in the World10 MinA father sends his son to the mill with one rule, never to grind where the miller has no beard, and at every mill down the river the same beardless man is already waiting.
- 3The Story of three Wonderful Beggars17 MinA rich man who sets his dogs on beggars lets three of them sleep in his loft to please his little daughter, and in the night she overhears them choosing a name and a fortune for a baby just born in the next village.
- 4Schippeitaro7 MinA young warrior looking for a great deed to make his name shelters overnight in a forest chapel, where at midnight a troop of cats dances in the moonlight shrieking, ‘Do not tell Schippeitaro!’
- 5The Three Princes and their Beasts17 MinA wolf that can speak asks three brothers out hunting not to shoot it, and offers each of them a cub instead, to keep as a faithful friend.
- 6The Goat's Ears of the Emperor of Trojan5 MinAn emperor with goat’s ears asks every barber who shaves him whether anything about him looks odd, and has each one who says yes put to death.
- 7The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples23 MinA golden apple tree in front of an emperor’s palace blossoms and bears fruit every night, and every morning the boughs are stripped bare with no sign of who took the fruit.
- 8The Lute Player9 MinA king with a happy marriage and nothing left to worry him grows restless for a war, and finds one.
- 9The Grateful Prince39 MinA king lost in a forest is offered the way out, if he will promise a stranger the first thing that comes out of his house to meet him.
- 10The Child who came from an Egg20 MinA childless queen, alone in the palace garden while her husband is away at war, is approached by a limping old woman who asks to read her hand and says she may bring her luck.
- 11Stan Bolovan23 MinA peasant’s wife is sad all day long and will not tell her husband why, however often he asks.
- 12The Two Frogs4 MinTwo frogs who have never heard of each other, one in Osaka and one in Kioto, set out on the same spring morning to see the other’s city.
- 13The Story of a Gazelle36 MinA beggar who scratches dust-heaps for grains of corn spends the only coin he has on a gazelle.
- 14How a Fish swam in the Air and a Hare in the Water9 MinAn old man finds a pot of gold and silver in the forest, and he is married to a woman who tells the whole village every piece of news he brings home.
- 15Two in a Sack9 MinA man whose wife beats him with a broom finds a crane in his net that promises to be grateful if he sets it free.
- 16The Envious Neighbour11 MinAn old couple with no children have only a little dog to love, and in their garden it will not stop scratching at one patch of ground.
- 17The Fairy of the Dawn54 MinAn emperor's right eye laughs while his left eye weeps, and the reason is a secret he has kept even from the one or two men brave enough to ask.
- 18The Enchanted Knife5 MinA young man sworn to marry only a girl of royal blood has eight days to bring an emperor three horses that have never had a master, loaded with gold, if he wants the emperor’s daughter.
- 19Jesper who herded the Hares23 MinA king promises his only daughter to any man who can bring him a dozen perfect pearls and then do whatever tasks he sets.
- 20The Underground Workers14 MinA man lost in the snow on a night between Christmas and the New Year is woken behind a juniper tree by a long thin stranger carrying a young fir tree.
- 21The History of Dwarf Long Nose45 MinA cobbler’s twelve-year-old son is selling herbs at his mother’s market stall when a ragged old woman with a long hooked nose starts pawing through the herbs and calling them all bad.
- 22The Nunda, Eater of People25 MinA sultan who visits his garden three times a day loves one date tree best of everything in it, and has seven sons, six he is proud of and one he has given up on.
- 23The Story of Hassebu12 MinA boy who cannot be taught any trade is left at home to eat and sleep, until he thinks to ask his mother what his father did for a living.
- 24The Maiden with the Wooden Helmet9 MinA dying mother makes her beautiful daughter put on a wooden helmet pulled low over her face, so that nobody will look twice at her.
- 25The Monkey and the Jelly-fish8 MinA sea-queen lies ill, and the only cure a doctor can find for her is the liver of an ape, a creature that does not live in the sea.
- 26The Headless Dwarfs18 MinEvery servant a minister sends to ring the church bells at midnight vanishes, and people have begun to whisper that the minister murdered them himself.
- 27The young Man who would have his Eyes opened8 MinA young man who cannot bear that anything should be hidden from him goes from wizard to wizard asking to be shown what happens in the world at night.
- 28The Boys with the Golden Stars17 MinThree sisters picking strawberries tell each other what each would give the man who marries her, and an emperor riding past overhears the youngest promise twin sons with golden stars on their foreheads.
- 29The Frog9 MinA mother gives each of her three sons a skein of flax to take to the woman he means to marry, and the youngest has never spoken to a girl in his life.
- 30The Princess who was hidden Underground6 MinA king has hidden his daughter in a palace under the ground and will let whoever finds her marry her, but any man who looks for her and fails must die.
- 31The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy46 MinAn old emperor who has to send a son to serve a conquering neighbour for ten years has no son, only three daughters.
- 32The Story of Halfman23 MinA childless judge is handed twelve apples by a stranger and told that if his wife eats them she will bear twelve sons.
- 33The Prince who wanted to see the World15 MinA young man who talked his father into letting him see the world sits at an inn table with nothing left in his bag, and a stranger offers him one more game.
- 34Virgilius the Sorcerer20 MinA Roman boy whose kinsmen have stripped his widowed mother is sent away to study in a foreign country, for his own safety.
- 35Mogarzea and his Son12 MinAn orphan whose guardian has spent everything his parents left him has nowhere to sleep, and the only light he can see is a fire with a very tall man asleep beside it.