ll see no harm in what they have done;
nay, like Father William in the poem, they are ready 'to do it again
and again.'

[Footnote 1: You may buy them from Mr. Nutt, in the Strand.]

Where is the harm? The truth is that the Folk Lore Society--made up of
the most clever, learned, and beautiful men and women of the
country--is fond of studying the history and geography of Fairy Land.
This is contained in very old tales, such as country people tell, and
savages:

'Little Sioux and little Crow,
Little frosty Eskimo.'

These people are thought to know most about fairyland and its
inhabitants. But, in the Yellow Fairy Book, and the rest, are many
tales by persons who are neither savages nor rustics, such as Madame
D'Aulnoy and Herr Hans Christian Andersen. The Folk Lore Society, or
its president, say that _their_ tales are not so true as the rest, and
should not be published with the rest. But _we_ say that all the
stories which are pleasant to read are quite true enough for us; so
here they are, with pictures by Mr. Ford, and we do not think that
either the pictures or the stories are likely to mislead children.

As to whether there are really any fairies or not, that is a difficult
question. Professor Huxley thinks there are none. The Editor never saw
any himself, but he knows several people who have seen them--in the
Highlands--and heard their music. If ever you are in Nether Lochaber,
go to the Fairy Hill, and you may hear the music yourself, as grown-up
people have done, but you must go on a fine day. Again, if there are
really no fairies, why do people believe in them, all over the world?
The ancient Greeks believed, so did the old Egyptians, and the
Hindoos, and the Red Indians, and is it likely, if there are no
fairies, that so many different peoples would have seen and heard
them? The Rev. Mr. Baring-Gould saw several fairies when he was a boy,
and was travelling in the land of the Troubadours. For these reasons,
the Editor thinks that there are certainly fairies, but they never do
anyone any harm; and, in England, they have been frightened away by
smoke and schoolmasters. As to Giants, they have died out, but real
Dwarfs are common in the forests of Africa. Probably a good many
stories not perfectly true have been told about fairies, but such
stories have also been told about Napoleon, Claverhouse, Julius Caesar,
and Joan of Arc, all of whom certainly existed. A wise child will,
therefore, remember