Fairy Tales From All Nations

A queen's splendid garden cannot satisfy her two children until a wondrous bird brings the gift of storytelling. This opening fable sets the tone for Anthony R. Montalba's collection, which defends imaginative amusement as a pleasure with value of its own. The preface describes a selection drawn from more than a hundred volumes of fairy lore, and the contents identify tales from Danish, Arabic, Polish, Sanskrit, Norwegian, and other sources.

Enchanted animals, mysterious strangers, royal children, and difficult tests fill these stories. In one excerpt, a shepherd meets a princess who has spent centuries under a spell and must appear as a serpent. Her appeal makes courage and trust part of the encounter with magic. The volume includes twenty-four illustrations by Richard Doyle. Readers can compare how different storytelling traditions use transformations, promises, and unexpected help, while enjoying the variety of a collection arranged as separate tales.