Grimm, Jakob Ludwig Karl GERMAN POPULAR STORIES AND FAIRY TALES, AS TOLD BY GAMMER GRETHEL. FROM THE COLLECTION OF MM. GRIMM. Bebised Translation BY EDGAR TAYLOR. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DESIGNS BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK AND LUDWIG GRIMM. LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1888. Request 1-7-30 PREFACE. NEARLY fifteen years ago the English public had its first regular introduction to the curious and amusing popular Tales circulating among the Germans, as collected, and so admirably edited, by the learned and excellent MM. Grimm, brethren not only in kindred but in literary taste and industry. Another race of that class of readers for whose entertainment such stories are more peculiarly adapted has since arisen, and the Translators have been induced once again to resort to the sources from whence they drew their former supply, for the purpose of re-arranging, revising, and adding to their budget, so as to produce it in a new form, and with the omission of those parts for which it is probable least interest will be felt Such as it is, they present their compilation to their young friends, and will add, in substance, a few of the observations which they before prefixed in explanation of them. They admit, as they did then, that they were first induced to compile this little work by the eager relish with which a few of the tales were received by the young friends to whom they were narrated. In this feeling the Trans lators did not hesitate to avow their own participation; added years have left them pretty much in the same position; and Sir Walter Scott, in his letter to one of the translators (which will be found at the end of this volume), has given to their feelings the sanction of his weighty authority Popular fictions and traditions are somewhat gone out of fashion; yet most will own them to be associated with the brightest recollections of their youth. They |