them to do
without reading any of the book.

This appears to be the philosophy of prefaces in general, and perhaps
authors might be more daring and candid than they are with advantage,
and write regular criticisms of their own books in their prefaces, for
nobody can be so good a critic of himself as the author--if he has a
sense of humour. If he has not, the less he says in his preface the
better.

These Fairy Books, however, are not written by the Editor, as he has
often explained, 'out of his own head.' The stories are taken from
those told by grannies to grandchildren in many countries and in
many languages--French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Gaelic, Icelandic,
Cherokee, African, Indian, Australian, Slavonic, Eskimo, and what not.
The stories are not literal, or word by word translations, but have been
altered in many ways to make them suitable for children. Much has
been left out in places, and the narrative has been broken up into
conversations, the characters telling each other how matters stand, and
speaking for themselves, as children, and some older people, prefer them
to do. In many tales, fairly cruel and savage deeds are done, and these
have been softened down as much as possible; though it is impossible,
even if it were desirable, to conceal the circumstance that popular
stories were never intended to be tracts and nothing else. Though
they usually take the side of courage and kindness, and the virtues
in general, the old story-tellers admire successful cunning as much
as Homer does in the Odyssey. At least, if the cunning hero, human or
animal, is the weaker, like Odysseus, Brer Rabbit, and many others, the
story-teller sees little in intellect but superior cunning, by which
tiny Jack gets the better of the giants. In the fairy tales of no
country are 'improper' incidents common, which is to the credit of human
nature, as they were obviously composed mainly for children. It is
not difficult to get rid of this element when it does occur in popular
tales.

The old puzzle remains a puzzle--why do the stories of the remotest
people so closely resemble each other? Of course, in the immeasurable
past, they have been carried about by conquering races, and learned by
conquering races from vanquished peoples. Slaves carried far from home
brought their stories with them into captivity. Wanderers, travellers,
shipwrecked men, merchants, and wives stolen from alien tribes have
diffused the stories; gipsies and Je