English Fairy Tales

Classic fairy tales endure from generation to generation. The source of countless adaptations and reimaginings, this collection is remarkable in its scale and diversity. Featuring familiar tales like "Jack and the Beanstalk," "The History of Tom Thumb," and "The Story of the Three Little Pigs," as well as more obscure gems like "The Old Woman and Her Pig" and "Childe Rowland," this anthology is a treasure trove of outstanding children's literature. Once upon a time there was a farmer and his wife who had one daughter, and she was courted by a gentleman. Every evening he used to come and see her, and stop to supper at the farmhouse, and the daughter used to be sent down into the cellar to draw the beer for supper. So one evening she had gone down to draw the beer, and she happened to look up at the ceiling while she was drawing, and she saw a mallet stuck in one of the beams. It must have been there a long, long time, but somehow or other she had never noticed it before, and she began a-thinking. And she thought it was very dangerous to have that mallet there, for she said to herself: "Suppose him and me was to be married, and we was to have a son, and he was to grow up to be a man, and come down into the cellar to draw the beer, like as I'm doing now, and the mallet was to fall on his head and kill him, what a dreadful thing it would be!" And she put down the candle and the jug, and sat herself down and began a-crying.