Fables and Folk Stories, Part I

Abstract

This little ninety-six-page pamphlet mixes fables and folk stories together, thirty-five of the former and eight of the latter, often in several parts. Scudder draws upon his already published Book of Fables and adds others (vii). The introduction gives the reader a sense of what people thought of fables late in the nineteenth century: they are for both the boy and the man; they speak of animals; they bolster prudence, which is a beginning of virtue; they begin a child's acquaintance with permanent literature. Different: the mouse runs into the lion's mouth (41), and the goose lays a golden egg every day of the year (66). New to me: A Country Fellow and the River (28) and The Arab and his Camel (81), which plays out each of the phases including the camel's suggestion that the Arab leave the tent. I have wanted for years to find an edition of fables in this or other small-book formats, and I am amazed at last to have found a pair! T of C on ix-x.