“Never!”
“Oh yes, you will. Mortals never believe.”
I turned angrily away at this remark, but when I looked again to reply, Phancie had vanished—faded away like a wreath of snow in the sunshine, and I was alone in the beautiful room.
Oh, it was truly a famous library, containing the most wonderful books in the world, but none of which I had seen before, except the faery tales. In one recess I found the lost six books of Spenser’s Faerie Queene, the last tales told by Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims, the end of Coleridge’s Christabel, some forgotten plays of Shakespeare, and many other books which had been lost on earth, or which the authors had failed to complete. I learned afterwards that they finished their earthly works in Faeryland, and that none of the books they had written during their lives were in the library, but only those they had not written.
You will not know the names of the books I have mentioned, because you are not old enough to understand them but when you grow up, you will, no doubt, read them all—not the faery books, of course, but all the others which the men I mention have written.
In another recess I found nothing but faery tales—Jack and the Beanstalk, The White Cat, The Yellow Dwarf, and many others, which were all marked The Chronicles of Faeryland.
I do not know how long I was in the library, because there was no day or night, but only the soft glow of the moon-lamp shining through the room. I read many, many of the books, and they were full of the most beautiful stories, which all children would love to hear; but, as Phancie said, I only remember seven, and these seven I will now relate.
I hope you will like them very much, for they are all true stories in which the faeries took part, and there is more wisdom in them than you would think.
The faeries understand them, and so do I, because I have faery blood in my veins; but many grown-up people who read them will laugh, and say they are only amusing fables. The wise children, however, who read carefully and slowly will find out the secrets they contain, and these secrets are the most beautiful things in the world.
So now I have told you how I was permitted to enter Faeryland, I will relate the stories I remember which I read in the faery palace, and the clever child who finds out the real meanings of these stories will perhaps some day receive an invitation from King Oberon to go to Faeryland and see all the wonders of his beautiful library.