The Project Gutenberg EBook of Prince Prigio, by Andrew Lang

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Title: Prince Prigio
From "His Own Fairy Book"

Author: Andrew Lang

Release Date: June 25, 2007 [EBook #21935]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRINCE PRIGIO ***

Produced by David Widger

PRINCE PRIGIO

From "His Own Fairy Book"

By Andrew Lang

TO CHILDREN.

The Author of this book is also the Editor of the Blue, Red, Greenland
Yellow Fairy Books. He has always felt rather an impostor, because so
many children seem to think that he made up these books out of his
own head. Now he only picked up a great many old fairy tales, told
in French, German, Greek, Chinese, Red Indian, Russian, and other
languages, and had them translated and printed, with pictures. He is
glad that children like them, but he must confess that they should be
grateful to old forgotten people, long ago, who first invented these
tales, and who knew more about fairies than we can hope to do.

_My Own Fairy Book_, which you now have in your hands, was made up
altogether out of his own head by the Author, of course with the help of
the Historical Papers in the kingdom of Pantouflia. About that ancient
kingdom very little is known. The natives speak German; but the Royal
Family, as usual, was of foreign origin. Just as England has had Norman,
Scottish, and, at present, a line of German monarchs, so the kings of
Pantouflia are descended from an old Greek family, the Hypnotidae, who
came to Pantouflia during the Crusades. They wanted, they explained, not
to be troubled with the Crusades, which they thought very injudicious
and tiresome. The Crest of the regal house is a Dormouse, dormant,
proper, on a field vert, and the Motto, when translated out of the
original Greek, means, _Anything for a Quiet Life_.

It may surprise the young reader that princes like Prigio and Ricardo,
whose feet were ever in the stirrup, and whose lances were always in
rest, should have descended from the family of the Hypnotidae, who were
remarkably lazy and peaceful. But these heroes doubtless inherited the
spirit of their great ancestress, whose story is necessary