The Project Gutenberg eBook, Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know, by
Various, Edited by Hamilton Wright Mabie

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Title: Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know

Author: Various

Release Date: February 5, 2005 [eBook #14916]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIRY TALES EVERY CHILD SHOULD
KNOW***

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FAIRY TALES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW

Edited by

HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE

The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library

Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., for The Parents' Institute, Inc.
Publishers of "The Parents' Magazine"

1905

[Illustration: "A thousand fantasies begin to throng"]

INTRODUCTION TO

"FAIRIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW"

The fairy tale is a poetic recording of the facts of life, an
interpretation by the imagination of its hard conditions, an effort to
reconcile the spirit which loves freedom and goodness and beauty with
its harsh, bare and disappointing conditions. It is, in its earliest
form, a spontaneous and instinctive endeavor to shape the facts of the
world to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of the heart.
It involves a free, poetic dealing with realities in accordance with the
law of mental growth; it is the naive activity of the young imagination
of the race, untrammelled by the necessity of rigid adherence to the
fact.

The myths record the earliest attempt at an explanation of the world and
its life; the fairy tale records the free and joyful play of the
imagination, opening doors through hard conditions to the spirit, which
craves power, freedom, happiness; righting wrongs and redressing
injuries; defeating base designs; rewarding patience and virtue;
crowning true love with happiness; placing the powers of darkness under
control of man and making their ministers his servants. In the fairy
story, men are not set entirely free from their limitations, but, by the
aid of fairies, genii, giants and demons, they are put in command of
unusual powers and make themselves masters of the forces of nature.

The oldest