We are going into Fairy Land for a little while, to see what we can find there to amuse and instruct us this Christmas time. Does anybody know the way? There are no maps or guidebooks, and the places we meet with in our workaday world do not seem like the homes of the Fairies. Yet we have only to put on our Wishing Caps, and we can get into Fairy Land in a moment. The house-walls fade away, the winter sky brightens, the sun shines out, the weather grows warm and pleasant; flowers spring up, grea

Once upon a time there lived a king and a queen, who had three beautiful daughters. The youngest of them, who was called Psyche, was the loveliest; she was so very beautiful that she was thought to be a second Aphrodite, the Goddess of Beauty and Love, and all who saw her worshipped her as if she were the goddess; so that the temples of Aphrodite were deserted and her worship neglected, and Psyche was preferred to her; and as she passed along the streets, or came into the temples, the people cro

We have said something about the people and the countries which gave birth to our Fairy Stories, and about the meaning of such tales generally when they were first thought of. Then they were clearly understood, and those who told them and heard them knew what they meant; but, as time went on, and as the Aryan race became scattered in various countries, the old stories changed a great deal, and their meaning was lost, and all kinds of wild legends, and strange fables and fanciful tales, were made

Now we come to an entirely new region, in which, however, we find, under other forms, the same creatures which have already been described. From the sunny East we pass to the cold and frozen North. Here the Scandinavian countries—Norway, Sweden, and Denmark—are wonderfully rich in dwarfs, and giants, and trolls, and necks, and nisses, and other inhabitants of Fairyland; and with these we must also class the Teutonic beings of the same kind; and likewise the fairy creatures who were once supposed

In a very delightful book which has already been mentioned, Campbell's "Popular Tales of the West Highlands," there are many curious stories of fairy folk and other creatures of the like kind, described in the traditions of the west of Scotland, and which are still believed in by many of the country people. There are Brownies, for instance, the farm spirits. One of these, so the story goes, inhabited the island of Inch, and looked after the cattle of the Mac Dougalls; but if the dairymaid neglec

This brings us towards the end—that is, to show how some of our own familiar stories connect themselves with the old Aryan myths, and also to show something of what they mean. There are four stories which we know best—Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack the Giant Killer, and Jack and the Bean Stalk—and the last two of these belong especially to English fairy lore. Now about the story of Cinderella. We saw something of her in the first chapter: How she is Ushas, the Dawn Maiden of th