The longer stories in this book are called Fairy Stories, because that is the name by which such tales are always known to children; and yet only a very few contain any direct reference to fairies. The most of them have to do with talking animals and with strange incidents and transformations such as have always delighted the childish fancy. They have been drawn from a variety of sources; and liberty has been taken to make such changes in the narratives as seemed most necessary to adapt them to the understanding and needs of the children of our own time and country. Free renderings, they may be called, of some of the most popular folktales of foreign lands. The Three Bears, Tom Thumb, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Tom Tit Tot are old English favorites dressed in modern garb; Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Princet and the Golden Blackbird, and Drakesbill and his Friends are variants of the well-known French versions by Perrault, Marelles, and Sebillot; Little Tuppen and The Three Goats named Bruse are from Norwegian sources; and the rest are founded upon German originals. In the retelling of these tales care has been taken to avoid whatever might distress the most sensitive child as well as everything that could give a wrong bias to his moral nature or distort his perception of the beautiful and the true.
