The Swedish Fairy Book

THE SWEDISH FAIRY BOOK
EDITED BY CLARA STROEBE TRANSLATED BY FREDERICK H. MARTENS
WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BY
GEORGE W. HOOD
NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1921, by Frederick A. Stokes Company
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
The following volume of Swedish fairy-tales represents a careful choice, after the best original sources, of those examples of their kind which not only appeared most colorful and entertaining, but also most racially Swedish in their flavor. For the fairy-tales of each of the three Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, have a distinct local color of their own. The wealth of material available has made it possible to give due representation to most types of fairy-tales, from the stories of older origin, the tales of giant, troll, and werewolf, to such delightful tales as Lasse, My Thrall , and The Princess and the Glass Mountain, colored with the rich and ornate stylistic garb of medieval chivalric poesy. There has been no attempt to rewrite these charming folk-and fairy-tales in the translation. They have been faithfully narrated in the simple, naive manner which their traditional rendering demands. And this is one reason, perhaps, why they should appeal to young American readers—for young America by instinct takes kindly to that which is straightforward and sincere, in the realm of fairy-tale as in life itself.
Frederick H. Martens
THE SWEDISH FAIRY BOOK