Fairy Tales, of which this is the first volume, follows without break an earlier book, Rhymes and Stories, and is made up chiefly of Märchen, or nursery tales, with a few drolls, or comic anecdotes. The term “fairy tale” has been used in its popular sense as including “tales in which occurs something ‘fairy,’ something extraordinary,—giants, fairies, dwarfs, speaking animals. It must also be taken to cover tales in which what is extraordinary is the stupidity of the actors.”

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