The true annals of fairyland in the reign of King Oberon

364 Pages·1909·22.92 MB·English

by  Walter Jerrold

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P re J'ace
MY DEAR YOUNG FOLKS,
Here are some more stories from the wonderful
Annals of Fairyland. Howtheywere firsttold at theCourt
of King Oberon, and how they came to be recorded you
will learn at the beginning, and much as you love the little
people you will, I think, like them even better when you
have learned all that this volume has to tell. Mr William
Canton has told you the stories properly belonging to "The
Reign of King Herla," Mr J. M. Gibbon showed you how
a famous merry old soul and his court found entertainment
in story-telling in "The Reign of King Cole," and nowitis
my pleasantprivilegeto putbefore you, from the inexhaust-
ible Annals, those tales which properly belong to "The
Reign of King Oberon."
vii
Preface
Of course you may have already met some of these
stories before, for most of our best writers have been made
free of Fairyland and have written of the wonderful things
they learned there; Hans Christian Andersen and the
Brothers Grimm have long since been famous for all that
they have told of their visits to the marvellous land, and
some of the stories which they brought back will be found
to belong to the reign of Oberon and Titania, while others
have been told by Ben Jonson, by Thomas Hood, by
Charles Perrault, by Thomas Crofton Croker, by Douglas
Jerrold, by Benjamin Thorpe and by Sir George Dasent
but old or new all have the perennial youthfulness of
the fairies themselves, and as long as we can truly enjoy
them we shall not grow old.
THE EDITOR.
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