e explanations, the Author leaves to the judgment of young
readers his _Own Fairy Book_.

PRINCE PRIGIO

By Andrew Lang

Adorned by Gordon Browne, T. Scott, and E. A. Lemann.

IS

Dedicated

TO

ALMA, THYRA, EDITH, ROSALIND, NORNA, CECILY, AND VIOLET

PREFACE.

In compiling the following History from the Archives of Pantouflia, the
Editor has incurred several obligations to the Learned. The Return of
Benson (chapter xii.) is the fruit of the research of the late Mr. Allen
Quatermain, while the final _wish_ of Prince Prigio was suggested by the
invention or erudition of a Lady.

A study of the _Firedrake_ in South Africa, where he is called the
_Nanaboulele_, a difficult word-has been published in French (translated
from the Basuto language) by M. Paul Sebillot, in the _Revue des
Traditione Populaires_. For the _Remora_, the Editor is indebted to the
_Voyage a la Lune_ of M. Cyrano de Bergerac.

[Illustration: Chapter One]

CHAPTER I.--_How the Fairies were not Invited to Court_

ONCE upon a time there reigned in Pantouflia a king and a queen. With
almost everything else to make them happy, they wanted one thing: they
had no children. This vexed the king even more than the queen, who was
very clever and learned, and who had hated dolls when she was a child.
However, she too, in spite of all the books she read and all the
pictures she painted, would have been glad enough to be the mother of
a little prince. The king was anxious to consult the fairies, but the
queen would not hear of such a thing. She did not believe in fairies:
she said that they had never existed; and that she maintained, though
_The History of the Royal Family_ was full of chapters about nothing
else.

Well, at long and at last they had a little boy, who was generally
regarded as the finest baby that had ever been seen. Even her majesty
herself remarked that, though she could never believe all the courtiers
told her, yet he certainly was a fine child--a very fine child.

Now, the time drew near for the christening party, and the king and
queen were sitting at breakfast in their summer parlour talking over
it. It was a splendid room, hung with portraits of the royal ancestors.
There was Cinderella, the grandmother of the reigning monarch, with her
little foot in her glass slipper thrust out before her. There was the
Marquis de Carabas, who, as everyone knows, was raised to the throne as
prince consort after his marr