Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/122

 114 a new turn to a well-known inarche7i. I must also make a protest on another point. Glad as I shall be to find that the opinion I ventured to express in the introduction to English Fairy and other Folk Tales, that the märchen recorded in England are very few, is unfounded, still I must, in all fairness, object to the inclusion among English fairy tales of some that Mr, Jacobs has added to his list. It may be probable—nay, I think we may assume as certain—that the stories of "Nicht Nought Nothing", "Childe Rowland", "The Red Etin", and others, were in substance told in England generations ago. This is, however, a mere inference; and we do not know in what precise form they were repeated to our forefathers. It may have been that in which they are here presented: it is equally likely not to have been. Again, Mr, Jacobs has paraphrased ballads in order to obtain some of his stories, like "Binnorie", "The Laidly Worm", "Earl Mar's Daughter". Here, again, there can be little doubt that the stories once existed in other forms than verse; nor would it be reasonable to complain of their being put into prose for the purpose of the present volume. But it must not be forgotten that these prose versions are not themselves genuine folk-tales, but only literary reconstructions which may be more or less accurate. The careful and scholarly notes appended to the book display with frankness the alterations Mr. Jacobs has deemed proper to make for the little ones of the present day, and give us a slight foretaste of the banquet he is preparing "for students only".

Of The Red Fairy Book I need only say that it is a worthy companion to The Blue Fairy Book, published last year. The stories are, except "Jack and the Beanstalk", from foreign, and some of them from unfamiliar, sources, and so will be the more welcome to the audience to whom they are addressed—the same audience as that to which English Fairy Tales is intended to appeal. May both editors succeed in making many youthful disciples, to