There was once upon a time a poor boy who had neither father nor mother. In order to gain a living he looked after the sheep of a great Lord. Day and night he spent out in the open fields, and only when it was very wet and stormy did he take refuge in a little hut on the edge of a big forest. Now one night, when he was sitting on the grass beside his flocks, he heard not very far from him the sound as of some one crying. He rose up and followed the direction of the

Once upon a time there lived a shoemaker who could get no work to do, and was so poor that he and his wife nearly died of hunger. At last he said to her, `It is no use waiting on here–I can find nothing; so I shall go down to Mascalucia, and perhaps there I shall be more lucky.`
So down he went to Mascalucia, and walked through the streets crying, `Who wants some shoes?` And very soon a window was pushed up, and a woman`s head was thrust out of it.
`Here are a pair for you to patch,` she said.

Once upon a time there was a king who had an only son. When the lad was about eighteen years old his father had to go to fight in a war against a neighbouring country, and the king led his troops in person. He bade his son act as Regent in his absence, but ordered him on no account to marry till his return.
Time went by. The prince ruled the country and never even thought of marrying. But when he reached his twenty-fifth birthday he began to think that it might be rather nice to have a wife, and he

In a small hut, right in the middle of the forest, lived a man, his wife, three sons and a daughter. For some reason, all the animals seemed to have left that part of the country, and food grew very scarce; so, one morning, after a night of snow, when the tracks of beasts might be easily seen, the three boys started off to hunt.
They kept together for some time, till they reached a place where the path they had been following split into two, and one of the brothers called his dog and went to the left, while the

There was once a forester who went into the forest to hunt, and as he entered it he heard a sound of screaming as if a little child were there. He followed the sound, and at last came to a high tree, and at the top of this a little child was sitting, for the mother had fallen asleep under the tree with the child, and a bird of prey had seen it in her arms, had flown down, snatched it away, and set it on the high tree.
The forester climbed up, brought the child down, and thought to himself:

As a merry young huntsman was once going briskly along through a wood, there came up a little old woman, and said to him, “Good day, good day; you seem merry enough, but I am hungry and thirsty; do pray give me something to eat.` The huntsman took pity on her, and put his hand in his pocket and gave her what he had. Then he wanted to go his way; but she took hold of him, and said, “Listen, my friend, to what I am going to tell you; I will reward you for your kindness; go your way,

A soldier came marching along the high road: “Left, right-left, right.” He had his knapsack on his back, and a sword at his side; he had been to the wars, and was now returning home.
As he walked on, he met a very frightful-looking old witch in the road. Her under-lip hung quite down on her breast, and she stopped and said, “Good evening, soldier; you have a very fine sword, and a large knapsack, and you are a real soldier; so you shall have as much money as ever you like.”
“Thank you, old witch,” said the soldier.
“Do you see that

CHAPTER I
Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book, called True Stories from Nature, about the primeval forest. It was a picture of a boa constrictor in the act of swallowing an animal. Here is a copy of the drawing.
In the book it said: “Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing it. After that they are not able to move, and they sleep through the six months that they need for digestion.”
I pondered deeply, then, over the adventures of the jungle. And after some work with a colored pencil I succeeded in

There was once a respectable journeyman-tailor, named Labakan, who had learned his trade of a clever master in Alexandria. It could not be said that Labakan was unhandy with the needle; on the contrary, he was able to do very fine work. Neither would one be justified in calling him lazy; but still every thing was not just as it should be with the workman, as he often sewed away by the hour at such a rate that the needle became red-hot in his hands, and the thread fairly smoked, and would then show a better piece of work than

There was once upon a time a King and Queen who had everything they could possibly wish for in this world except a child. At last, after twelve years, the Queen gave birth to a son; but she did not live long to enjoy her happiness, for on the following day she died. But before her death she called her husband to her and said, `Never let the child put his feet on the ground, for as soon as he does so he will fall into the power of a wicked Fairy, who will do him much harm.` And these