The Brown Fairy Book
Andrew Lang
Paperback
(CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Sept. 14, 2017)
The stories in this Fairy Book come from all quarters of the world. For example, the adventures of āBall-Carrier and the Bad Oneā are told by Red Indian grandmothers to Red Indian children who never go to school, nor see pen and ink. āThe Bunyipā is known to even more uneducated little ones, running about with no clothes at all in the bush, in Australia. You may see photographs of these merry little black fellows before their troubles begin, in āNorthern Races of Central Australia,ā by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen. They have no lessons except in tracking and catching birds, beasts, fishes, lizards, and snakes, all of which they eat. But when they grow up to be big boys and girls, they are cruelly cut about with stone knives and frightened with sham bogies all for their goodā their parents say and I think they would rather go to school, if they had their choice, and take their chance of being birched and bullied. However, many boys might think it better fun to begin to learn hunting as soon as they can walk. Other stories, like āThe Sacred Milk of Koumongoe,ā come from the Kaffirs in Africa, whose dear papas are not so poor as those in Australia, but have plenty of cattle and milk, and good mealies to eat, and live in houses like very big bee-hives, and wear clothes of a sort, though not very like our own.