d the witch who turns men into swine, and the man who bores
out the big foolish giant's eye, and the cap of darkness, and the shoes
of swiftness, that were worn later by Jack the Giant-Killer. These fairy
tales are the oldest stories in the world, and as they were first
made by men who were childlike for their own amusement, so they amuse
children still, and also grown-up people who have not forgotten how they
once were children.

Some of the stories were made, no doubt, not only to amuse, but to teach
goodness. You see, in the tales, how the boy who is kind to beasts, and
polite, and generous, and brave, always comes best through his trials,
and no doubt these tales were meant to make their hearers kind,
unselfish, courteous, and courageous. This is the moral of them. But,
after all, we think more as we read them of the diversion than of the
lesson. There are grown-up people now who say that the stories are
not good for children, because they are not true, because there are
no witches, nor talking beasts, and because people are killed in them,
especially wicked giants. But probably you who read the tales know very
well how much is true and how much is only make-believe, and I never yet
heard of a child who killed a very tall man merely because Jack killed
the giants, or who was unkind to his stepmother, if he had one, because,
in fairy tales, the stepmother is often disagreeable. If there are
frightful monsters in fairy tales, they do not frighten you now, because
that kind of monster is no longer going about the world, whatever he may
have done long, long ago. He has been turned into stone, and you may
see his remains in museums. Therefore, I am not afraid that you will
be afraid of the magicians and dragons; besides, you see that a really
brave boy or girl was always their master, even in the height of their
power.

Some of the tales here, like The Half-Chick, are for very little
children; others for older ones. The longest tales, like Heart of Ice,
were not invented when the others were, but were written in French, by
clever men and women, such as Madame d'Aulnoy, and the Count de Caylus,
about two hundred years ago. There are not many people now, perhaps
there are none, who can write really good fairy tales, because they do
not believe enough in their own stories, and because they want to be
wittier than it has pleased Heaven to make them.

So here we give you the last of the old stories, for the present, and
ho