Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as…
1. Good-Night
When the bright lamp is carried in,
The sunless hours again begin;
O’er all without, in field and lane,
The haunted night returns again.
Now we behold the embers flee
About the firelit hearth; and see
Our faces…
O it’s I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,
Of a ship that goes a sailing on the pond;
And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about;
But when I’m a little older, I…
Of course there was nobody for us to play with on the Big Half Moon, but then, as Claude says, you can’t have everything. We just had to make the most of each other, and we did.
The Big Half…
There was once a little brother who took his Sister by the hand, and said, “Since our own dear mother’s death we have not had one happy hour; our stepmother beats us every day, and, when we come near her,…
Once upon a time there dwelt near a large wood a poor woodcutter, with his wife and two children by his former marriage, a little boy called Hansel, and a girl named Grethel. He had little enough to break or…
One fine day a Tailor was sitting on his bench by the window in very high spirits, sewing away most diligently, and presently up the street came a country woman, crying, “Good jams for sale! Good jams for sale!” This…
Once upon a time there lived an old King, who fell very sick, and thought he was lying upon his death-bed; so he said, “Let faithful John come to me.” This faithful John was his affectionate servant, and was so…
Once upon a time there was a King who was so ill that everybody despaired of his life, and his three sons were very sorry, and went out into the palace gardens to weep. There they met an old man,…
There was once a poor peasant who sat in the evening by the hearth and poked the fire, and his wife sat and span. Then said he, “How sad it is that we have no children! With us all is…
There lived a tailor who had only one son, and he was extremely small, not any larger than your thumb, and so was called Tom Thumb.
However, he was a courageous little fellow, and he told his father, “Father, I…
THERE was once a Sheik of Alexandria named Ali Banu. Although he was good and generous, rich and clever, he was a very unhappy man, for he had the misfortune to lose his only son when he was but ten…
AT the time when Harun Al-Raschid was ruler of Bagdad there lived in Balsora a man named Benezar. He had a sufficiently large fortune to be able to live comfortably and at ease without working for a livelihood.
Even when…
THE Cadi of Acara had two children named Mustapha and Fatima, who were the joy and delight of their infirm and ailing father, and who loved each other very dearly. Mustapha was just two years older than Fatima, and it…
IN the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn’t pick up…
ONCE upon a most early time was a Neolithic man. He was not a Jute or an Angle, or even a Dravidian, which he might well have been, Best Beloved, but never mind why. He was a Primitive, and he…
Part The First
Which treats of the mirror and its fragments
Listen! We are beginning our story! When we arrive at the end of it we shall, it is to be hoped, know more than we do now. There was…