Mother’s Nursery Tales

Told and Illustrated
By
Katharine Pyle



New York
E. P. Dutton & Company
681 Fifth Avenue
Copyright, 1918
BY
E. P. Dutton & Company

 

CONTENTS

Introduction
The Sleeping Beauty
Jack and the Bean-Stalk
Beauty and the Beast
Jack-the-Giant-Killer
The Three Wishes
The Goose Girl
The Little Old Woman and Her Pig
The White Cat
Brittle-Legs
“I Went Up One Pair of Stairs,” etc.
The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean
The Water-Sprite
Star Jewels
Sweet Porridge
Chicken-Diddle
A Pack of Ragamuffins
The Frog Prince
The Wolf and the Five Little Goats
The Golden Goose
The Three Spinners
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
The Three Little Pigs
The Golden Key
Mother Hulda
The Six Companions
The Golden Bird
The Nail
Little Red Riding-Hood
Aladdin, or the Magic Lamp
The Cobbler and the Fairies
Cinderella
Jack in Luck
Puss in Boots
The Town Musicians

 

INTRODUCTION 

These are not new fairy-tales, the ones in this book that has been newly made for you and placed in your hands. They are old fairy-tales gathered together, some from one country, and some from another. They are old, old, old. As old as the hills or the human race, — as old as truth itself. Long ago, even so long ago as when your grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother was a little rosy-cheeked girl, and your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather was a noisy shouting little boy, these stories were old.

No one knows who first told them, nor where nor when. Perhaps none of them was told by any one particular person. Perhaps they just grew upon the Tree of Wisdom when the world was young, like shining fruit, and our wise and simple first parents plucked them, and gave them to their children to play with, and to taste. They could not harm the children, these fruits from the tree of wisdom, for each one was a lovely globe of truth, rich and wholesome to the taste. Magic fruit, for one could eat and eat, and still the fruit was there as perfect as ever to be handed down through generations, until at last it comes to you, as beautiful as in those days of long ago.

Perhaps you did not know that fairy tales were ever truths, but they are — the best and oldest of them. That does not mean they are facts like the things you see around you or learn from history books. Facts and truths are as different as the body and the spirit. Facts are like the body that we can see and touch and measure; we cannot see or measure the Spirit, but it is there.

We can think of these truths as of different shapes and colors, like pears and apples, and plums and other fruits, each with a different taste and color. But there is one great truth that flows through them all, and you know very well what it is: — evil in the end must always defeat itself, and in the end good always triumphs. The bad magician is tripped up by his own tricks, and the true prince marries the princess and inherits the kingdom. If any one of these stories had told it otherwise, that story would have died and withered away.

So take this book and read, being very sure that only good will come to you however often you read them over and over and over again.

Katharine Pyle.