This corner wall in my library is a good place to spend a day.
Top row, left to right: Perrault’s Fairy Tales, Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales, painting of the lavender witch’s edible cottage in Danken Wood, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, The Arabian Nights.
Bottom row: 8 of Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books.
Here’s Old Dabber of the West.
His granddaughter Nim loves him best.
Her smiles, so rare,
she tends to share
with Dabber alone above the rest.
On the world of Boad, strange pear trees grow on the cliffs overlooking the Wide Great Sea.
Motty, the hollowite nanny?
Why, the length of her tongue was uncanny.
With consummate ease
to the tops of the trees
it flicked with a bo bonny banny.
A particular favorite of the Queeeen
was Bandy of Thorns, bendo dreen.
He alone, you see,
could control the three,
the mad Triplet Princesses, each one a teen.
Sill was a twin. So was Fiss.
Sailing the sea was their bliss,
on a trampoline raft,
most unusual craft,
though they sensed there was something amiss.
None can compare to Rindle Mer
with her frothy shock of orange hair.
You need not ask
if she’s up to the task.
She’ll revive the Woods with seconds to spare.
I recently added this volume to my collection of Andrew Lang Fairy Books. I now own the blue, the green, the red, the pink, the yellow, the violet, the brown, and now the crimson. So far, ‘Little Wildrose’ is my favorite tale in this volume. Why? Because of the first sentence – Once upon a time the things in this story happened, and if they had not happened then the story would never have been told – and the last sentence – And in three days the wedding was celebrated, and the wedding feast was held, and everyone who saw the bride declared that if anybody wanted a perfect wife they must go to seek her on top of a tree.
Oh, and I like the sentences in between, too.
The last of the roamers was Lace.
She had a most serious face.
She wrote many stories
of Boadlian glories.
For a thousand years none took her place.
Beloved by all was Lady May of Orrun
from Cloud Castle City to all places foreign.
Her grace and her style
caused many a smile
on many a face to be worrun.
