SPANISH FAIRY STORIES.* SrAxisa literature is so little known in

our household circles, that a book of Spanish legends carefully revised for children comes with freshness, and is worth attention. We may reasonably hope to find therein one or two old-world stories worthy to take rank with Puss in Boots or Graciosa and Percinet.

The time sometimes seems almost gone by when new children's literature can be created ; literature for children under twelve years of age. It may reasonably be doubted whether little folk retain in after life much of the modern writing devoted to their benefit; but no child ever yet forgot Hop-o'-My Thumb's bread-crumbs being eaten by the birds of the air ; nor yet that the maiden all forlorn was tossed by the cow with the crumpled horn ; nor yet that the Ogre's wife hid the children in the copper cauldron. Some of these old tales may have been written for children in days when grown people were more like children themselves, and so understood them better ; but many others are real heroic legends or political allegories, and are told with a bald simplicity which does not hinder their subsequent expansion in a child's mind. That precautions too lightly taken are no better than bread- crumbs, that cows with crumpled horns are exceedingly irascible when worried, and that ogresses are more compassionate than ogres, even under similar and severe temptations to gourmandize, are facts which will bear much rumination in the infant brain ; while it might be ingeniously proved that Thackeray's famous novels do but illustrate them on a larger scale. Our nursery tales in rhyme and prose takes a rough-and-ready view of human life ; when Father Longlegs won't say his prayers, he comes to grief in the most convincing manner ; while human frailty is not too hardly dealt with in the person of

"Charlie loves good ale and wine, And Charlie loves good brandy."

—a record which might be injurious to youthful morals, were we not told on the next page that the frugality of Arthur's table was such that a bag pudding having been boiled,—

• *Parraill:13; or, Spanish Stories, Lelendarg and Traditional. London : Griffith and Farran. "The King and Queen did eat of it, And all the Court beside,

And what they could not eat that night The Queen next morning fried."

The rare and royal jumble, the wit, and the unfathomable meanings of the real old nursery literature will hardly be equalled. No mortal could write it of kualice prepense. " Mother Tabbyskins," a remarkable poem which lately appeared in Good IYords for the Young, and Mr. Macdonald's " Light Princess," seem to the present writer the nearest approach to it in our days ; and through both runs a playful wit which is wanting to the old tales. Nineteenth-century writers smile involuntarily at their own fun, it is so droll! But when the author of " Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds " and " The King was in His Counting-House" laid down his pen, he did not smile ; not he ! The songs were bred of a queer quaint humour of which our " chaff " is the nearest of kin. Nevertheless, all honour be to the story of the " Light Princess ; " the weightless baby, floating out of the window like thistle-down, and adhering to the ceiling of the palace dining-hall, whence she had to be pulled down by the tallest footman mounted on a chair upon the table, and armed with a long pair of tongs, remains an immortal picture in a real fairy tale. Turning over Patragas, we find the contents subdivided into popular stories, legendary history, and Moorish tales and anec- dotes. Several among these are well fitted to take permanent place, and we think they would have gained by being more nakedly told. Children take in the crudest statements, and con- sider that the famous reply to the question " Who Killed Cock Robin ? "

"I, said the sparrow,

With my bow and arrow,"

showed a bold and birdly defiance of the law. We think the very best of these Spanish tales to be the " Ill-Tempered Princess,"

which is told with great decision and simplicity. A poor young knight sets out to seek adventures, and meets a man puffing out his cheeks, who says his name is Blowo, the son of Blowon, the good blower ; a little way further he comes across Porto, the son of Porton, the good porter; and anon, with Ropo, the son of Ropon, the cunning rope-maker. " On," be it noted, is the Spanish augmentative. To these is added Listeno, the son of Listenon, the good listener. As all four were uncommonly tired of blowing, porterage, rope-twisting, and listening, they agree to follow the knight on his travels, and presently come to a huge castle with no door. And though Porto hurls at the wall a piece of rock as big as two men, they can't make a breach. While they are walking disconsolately round the building, Listeno declares he hears a cry, and traces the sound to the mouth of an old well overgrown with creeping plants, and here the other four say that they also can hear the cry ; and when they had cleared the plants away, the hole looked as black and deep as if it went down to the centre of the earth ; and up the abaft there came the sounds of a woman wail- ing, so loud and pitiful that it was indeed most distressing to hear. But how to get to the bottom ! Ropo then proposes to twist the fibres of 5,000 bundles of palmetto grass, a stringy plant growing in the south of Spain. So said, so done. They all set to work twisting, and every now and then let the rope down with a fragment of rock tied to the end, to see if it splashed in water.

They went on thus for five years, and at last the rope splashed the water, and hit rock a few feet lower. Listeno said it was a brook which ran across the bottom of the rock. Now while they had been twisting they had all boasted mightily of the great deeds they would do and the treasures they would find ; but when it came to the point, nobody durst attempt the descent save the Knight himself, and he laughed, and said he was not afraid. So he is tied to the rope, and his followers undertake to pay it out steadily. Down he goes, descending constantly for the space of three nights and three days ; and at the bottom he finds the water only breast-high, and wades till he comes to a cave, where is a beautiful Princess enthralled by a demon. It seems that the King, her father, driven distracted by her bad temper, was in the habit of wishing the Horned One would take her, and then of repenting, quick as lightning, his hasty words.

But one day, being more aggravated than usual, he said it in right earnest, and did not repent in time. Up sprang the Horned One,

and took the Princess away. How the Knight rescues her and marries her, being smitten with her great beauty ; how for some time she behaves decently, and then gradually allows her ill-temper to get the better of her, and how at last her husband, wearied to death, gets the Horned One again to take her into permanent custody, is told in the concluding pages of this quaint old Spanish tale. Another charming story, this time of the wars of the Moors and Christians, is " Hernando's Charger." Hernando being dead, the Moor who slaughtered him bound his armour upon the charger's back, and was about to lead him off, when the faithful beast breaks loose and gallops till he reaches the home of Dona Teresa, Hernando's wife. She, seeing steed and armour, under- stands well what has befallen her, and after caressing the charger, she leads him away to his fresh-littered stall, and that very day she tries the armour on her youthful son. Now the young Hernando was slight and pale, and not of age for war. But his mother Teresa was brave, brave as becomes a Christian spouse, and she listened not to his fears, but bade him be of good heart, and put his trust in Christ. And when the foe was nigh, the bold, black charger bestrid by young Hernando, darted to the encounter, and the boy was borne triumphantly along. And his father's shield rose to protect him, and the lance lifted up his arm, and the black charger rose at the Moor, and the lance cast him down from his seat. Then the sword leaped from its scab- bard, and planting itself in young Hernando's grasp, struck off the Pagan's head. And many other adventures had the youth and the steed, and wherever the fight was hottest, there rode the bold black charger, and rested not until the Moors were driven out of Spain. But when he fell, or where was buried, no mortal ever knew.

Some of the tales have a quaint religious element ; as in " Where One can dine, Two can dine," which relates how our Lord and St. Peter, being benighted, asked shelter in a woodman's cot. The old man makes up his fire, and sets his humble fare before his guests. Presently is heard another knock, and the woodman scratches his head in great perplexity. " Never mind," says St. Peter, " it's only some of our people. Where one can dine two can dine." Presently another knock is heard, and St. Peter, who thought he recognized the voice of St. John singing, got up to open the door, and sees the waving hair of gold of the youngest apostle. " All right," says St. Peter, "let them in ; they belong to our party. Where one can dine two can dine." So at last all the Apostles are assembled, and He who had first entered with Peter bade the woodman take his seat with the rest, and the old man sees with amazement his bar- ley loaves and grapes dine all the company. The sequel is some- what less solemn, detailing how the woodman begged St. Peter to give him constant luck at cards, and how he played the Devil for the soul of an attorney, and won. This incident occurred after his own death, just as he is winging his flight to heaven ; and taking the soul so charitably rescued with him, he goes up to the celestial gate. St. Peter asks what black soul he has got with him, and on being told replies, " There is no admittance here for attorneys." " Nay, Seil'or, but I said not so when you came to my bleak but on the moor, and brought other twelve with you. Where one can dine, two can dine." So St. Peter turned his back while the woodman took up the attorney's soul on his shoulders and crept into the heavenly land !

How St. Martin came to be the patron of male wineskins (there being no other word for drunkards), and how St. Michael lost a feather out of his wing, and many other things besides, will be found in PatraFfas, and are worth reading by gentle and by simple who love curious old tales.