Joseph Jacobs

John Dickson Batten

Twenty-six characteristic tales, both romantic and comic, from the folklore of the Celts of the British Isles, collected from both Gaelic and English speaking peasants.

Celtic Fairy Tales

A leading British folklorist presents this now-classic compilation of 29 traditional tales from India. Nine full-page plates and 37 other drawings illustrate "The Lion and the Crane," "Sun, Moon, and Wind Go Out to Dinner," "The Prince and the Fakir," "The Talkative Tortoise," "Why the Fish Laughed," and other fables.

Indian Fairy Tales

From the extreme West of the Indo-European world, we go this year to the extreme East. From the soft rain and green turf of Gaeldom, we seek the garish sun and arid soil of the Hindoo. In the Land of Ire, the belief in fairies, gnomes, ogres and monsters is all but dead; in the Land of Ind it still flourishes in all the vigour of animism.Soils and national characters differ; but fairy tales are the same in plot and incidents, if not in treatment. The majority of the tales in this volume have been known in the West in some form or other, and the problem arises how to account for their simultaneous existence in farthest West and East. Some-as Benfey in Germany, M. Cosquin in France, and Mr. Clouston in England-have declared that India is the Home of the Fairy Tale, and that all European fairy tales have been brought from thence by Crusaders, by Mongol missionaries, by Gipsies, by Jews, by traders, by travellers. The question is still before the courts, and one can only deal with it as an advocate. So far as my instructions go, I should be prepared, within certain limits, to hold a brief for India. So far as the children of Europe have their fairy stories in common, these-and they form more than a third of the whole-are derived from India. In particular, the majority of the Drolls or comic tales and jingles can be traced, without much difficulty, back to the Indian peninsula.

The book of wonder voyages Illustrations By John Dickson Batten

John Dickson Batten

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