Preface
ten times over. Certainly the translations, when finished, did not satisfy me, and so I turned back to the beginning and have rewritten the stories in my own way, which (as you may say with the Irish butler) 'may not be the best claret, but 'tis the best ye've got.'
I have made bold, too, to omit Perrault's conclusion of La Belle au Bois Dormant. To my amazement the editor of the Cabinet des Fées selects this lame sequel—it is no better than a sequel—of a lovely tale, and assigns to it the credit of having established 'la véritable fortune de ce genre.' Frankly, I cannot believe him. Further, I have condensed Madame de Villeneuve's narrative and obliterated its feeble ending. In taking each of these liberties I have the warrant of tradition, which in the treatment of fairy-tales speaks with a voice more authoritative than the original author's, for it speaks with the united voices of many thousands of children, his audience and best critics. As the children have decreed that in Southey's tale of The Three Bears the heroine shall be a little girl, and not, as Southey invented her, a good-for-nothing old woman, so they have
