A REAL FAIRY-TALE.* OBBIKSBANK'S adaptation of the familiar and beloved
legends of our childhood to moral, and especially teetotal, purposes still rankles in our memory as "an ancient tale of wrong." The ill-judged expedient did no great harm ; the magnificent im- possibility of Puss in Boots is uninjured by any. trite " morali- ties," and our own Jack climbs his beanstalk and pounds away, undecorated by the Blue Ribbon Society, at the real giant, who was not Gin at all, but Fee Faw Fum. Allegorical giants are very well in Bunyan; Pope, Pagan, and Despair make a mighty pretty group, under the wonderful handling of the "illuminated" tinker; but we do not want them in fairyland. One evil result of Cruikshanles enlistment of the elfin powers in his righteous crusade against the Bottle, has been to inspire us with distrust of modern fairy-tales, to lead us to suspect the intrusion of mere reason into what ought to be the realm of pure imagi- nation, the lurking cod-liver oil, wholesome, but horrid, under the amber deceptiveness of the genial ginger-wine. That the Wonderland of Alice should turn out to be Dreamland was a little shock, followed instantly, of course, by grateful recognition of masterly incongruity, beyond the hopes of John-a-Dreams himself ; but we should like a real Wonderland, all the same, a Wonderland that no one comes out of, into a world of copy, proofs, publication-day, post-hour, and letters to the Editor about Tweedledum and Tweedledee. To have firmly believed in fairies and been well up in fairy-lore is to have a great source of enjoyment still left to one, when most things real have lost their savour, for such a believer will have loved the glories of romance at all stages of life. There still lives an old lady who, in her childhood, was in the constant habit of going out at night, patient in hope, to watch for "the good people" at a famous " fairy-ring" near her home ; and it is very pleasant now to hear her talk of " Sir Walter's " novels, as none of our hard-headed time will ever talk of any one's ; as though, in her youth, she had known the " Desdichado," trembled at Norna of the Fitful Head, shared the sorrows of Minna and Brenda, and been deeply in love with the Master of Ravenswood. Needless to say she is a staunch Cavalier, " holds for the King," regards the Monastery and the Abbot as indisputable history, and could pass an examination in the The Fortunes of Nigel and Peveril of the Peale. She loves Byron, too, and especially his Conrad, has a heavenly vision of Medora in her mind's eye, and thinks a corsair can't possibly have been as bad as a pirate. Only, to be sure, Clement Cleveland was a pirate—that's a puzzler—but no matter ; the " one virtue " of a constant love, to which profes- sional beauties would have laid siege in vain, atones for a "thousand crimes." We are not sure, indeed, that she does not believe the crimes were merely put in for the sake of the rhyme.
Into this train of thought we have been led by the perusal of a real fairy-tale, a story of the good old kind, without any moral in it, five from the freezing touch of reason, rich in fantasy, and which not only leaves off with the incomparable happiness of fairyland, but boldly declares that "the end of such a wonder- ful beginning can only be described by a fairy." This is as it ought to be; here is no waking-up for child readers to a world of reality, in which good little girls learn lessons, do sums, and speak French genteelly in school hours. A thorough-going, * BIM under the Sea, and other Stories. By L. E. P. Illustrated by Mary Sharp. London ; Cassell, Potter, and Girdpiu. persuasive, indeed convincing, charming, fanciful, lavish fairy..
tale ;—with a wedding in it, of course, but what a wedding ! Only Queen Gulnare, of The Arabian Nights, can ever have had such a wedding. This is how it ended :— " The wedding over, they drove back on the sands by the sea. The bells on the white horses' necks tinkled gaily. A grand choir of birds performed with their throats a glorious wedding-march, composed by them for the occasion. Suddenly, Elfie called out, Oh, oh, there are the fish again !' And there in the sea were nothing but fishes' heads, big heads and little heads, flat heads and sharp heads, long mouths and broad mouths, merry mouths and grave mouths, big round eyes, little round eyes, green eyes and yellow eyes, crowded together, grinning and staring and gasping. Each fish threw out of its mouth a large, white pearl at the brides as they passed, and the princes' black footmen with the big silver buttons filled two large bags full. This, of course, is the rice !' said Elfie. Something like a great, black, sea-weed bag was thrown at each of the brides. Bursting at the blow, delicious sea bonbons fell into their laps. Ha, ha!' cried Elfie, 'this, of course, is the shoe !' and with a laugh she popped a bonbon into her bridegroom's mouth. With their laps full of golden eggs, dropped by the sea-gulls as they whirred and cawed over their heads, the brides and bridegrooms agreed that, even in the days when fairies reigned in the land, there had been no such mag- nificent weddings as theirs. And so un common, too !' cried the bridesmaids. And all the people shouted out, delighted, So very uncommon !' " No one who does not know how beautiful fishes in water are can properly enjoy this charming story of a lovely child who sank into the summer sea in pursuit of her own image, and there met with amazing adventures among the mermen, the mermaidens, and the merboys. We congratulate the author very specially on this latter delightful invention. With the sense of the exquisite colour, the inimitable grace and swiftness, and the curious variety of expression among fishes—ranging from the darting voracity of the shark tribe to the gliding and basking far Monte of the flounder, a kind of Spanish caballero among fishes, with a filmy bit of weed for the inevitable cigar— the story of Elfie is quite fascinating. The whole idea is grace- ful, fantastical, and attractive ; the King of the Fishes is a most imposing potentate, and Elfie's own particular mer- maiden is just the sort of person with whom it would be pleasant to make excursions on "the deep's untrampled shore," and pull the " green and purple seaweed" in an impossible security. One cannot read the beautiful story of Elfie under the Sea without thinking of how great a pleasure it must have been to write it ; to let everything real, likely, possible, suffer a sea change, and plunge among the wonders of the great deep with an utter disregard of science, oblivious of the' Challenger,' and provided with one's own sunshine. The Court scenes are particularly delightful ; the whales, with interlocked tails, on guard at the palace, flopping heavily between the great pillars, and the two princely salmon, who talk politics and Court gossip on a crimson seaweed ottoman, and get out of the way when the King-fish wakes up " cross," are charming new acquaintances. The idea of the "child of earth, with the golden hair," • carried away to consort with Mer-people is as old as Hylas, at least, but it has not, to our knowledge, been so poeti- cally and convincingly treated. Only the most odious of modern children, one of those horrid little monsters who are getting their deserts in Mr. Wilkie Collins's new novel, Heart and Science, could question the reality of Elfie's adventures, or fail to be enchanted with her history. The story of the child stolen by the fairies is usually a sad one, as, for instance, in Mr. Allingham's early and charming verses, " The Fairies," in his volume of Day and Night Songs :- " They stole little Bridget For seven years long ; When she came down again Her friends were all gone. They took her lightly'back, Between the night and morrow ;
They thought she was fast asleep, But she was dead with sorrow. They have kept her ever since, Deep within the lakes, On a bed of flag-leaves, Watching till she wakes."
Here is no stealing, no sad return, no lapse of time, with its terrors ; nothing but bright fancies, the happiest -chances, and a company as gay as that of which also Mr. Allingham sings,- " Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together : Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather." °
Once more, Elfie under the Sea is a real fairy-tale ; we cannot say better for it than that, for it means one of those good things for which we have almost ceased to hope. The author's other stories are also excellent, especially one called " Birdie Ella," which tells how, at her own wish, a little girl was changed into a bird, and feeling her wing-power, said:—" I feel as if I were the whole world, and the whole world were me." There is a touch of sadness in this story, when the bird hovers about the mourning parents of the lost little girl ; but it is, nevertheless, a real and a charming fairy-tale.
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