Belgian Fairy Tales

CHAPTER PAGE I. A Story for a Preface 1 II. The War Storm and Baldy the Horse 10 III. The Swan Maidens and the Silver Knight 17 IV. A Congress of Belgian Fairies 31 V. The Ogre...

But all the time, the king did not like her looks, any more than at the first. At times he shuddered, for fear she might be some evil creature in lovely human form. However, he...

There were not many of the Kluddes, for these clownish fellows, who lived in the Campine, among the sand dunes, or by the sea shore, or loafed along country roads, or by the sid...

This fairy, of modest disposition, who was willing to set a good example, offered to the other fairies that, if they would stop their quarrelings and think only how they might h...

Then Eileen looked at her shamrock and thought of what good Saint Patrick had taught her ancestors. After that, a sense of peace folded her like a garment. Surely, God was near.

The flag of Lyderic, as Duke of Brabant, was a tricolor, of black, yellow, and red, in vertical bands. To his mind black stood for the dark forest and the difficulties which are...

Now the fairy queen, that invited the pigeons to her snow palace was named Freya, and her day to be at home was Friday. Every time we speak of that day in the week, we pronounce...

Overjoyed at the idea, the farmer’s boy asked if he could take his favorite donkey with him. Permission was given, and lo! the lad chose the one that was a transformed fairy. Th...

This couple, the two married fairies, were not selfish or lazy. They, too, kept on calling to men who had no pretty gardens, or fertile fields, to help in bringing them together...

It was voted unanimously that the highest honors should be paid to Buccoleon, the dragon. So, with ropes and pullies, and a strong scaffold, they raised a mighty tackle on the t...

But before a claw could touch Rufinus, he had run his long, steel-headed spear, deep down into the monster’s throat. Then he drove his rearing horse still forward, and pushed th...

At this the trumpeter, having lost his temper at the Duke, who was high up on the walls, shook his fist at him, and went off in high dudgeon. He reported to Charlemagne that his...

If they told the people not to believe in the Druids and the mistletoe, it was because they wanted them to know more about the good God, who made the trees and flowers, and the...