A VERY old house once stood in a street with several others that were quite new and clean. One could read the date of its erection, which had been carved on one of the beams and su...
Peronnik was a poor idiot who belonged to nobody, and he would have died of starvation if it had not been for the kindness of the village people, who gave him food whenever he chos...
We are usefully reminded of the season of the cuckoo by the following homely proverbial lines: In April, The cuckoo shows his bill; In May, He sings all day; In June, He alters his...
Once on a time there was a man, so surly and cross, he never thought his Wife did anything right in the house. So, one evening, in haymaking time, he came home, scolding and sweari...
'Der Norlands Drache,' from Esthnische Mahrchen. Kreutzwald, Very long ago, as old people have told me, there lived a terrible monster, who came out of the North, and laid waste wh...
Once upon a time three soldiers returned from the wars; one was a sergeant, one was a corporal, and the third was a simple private. One night they were caught in a forest and made...
"Whenever you spit, whenever you sneeze, Whenever your rugs you beat, When you scatter dust with a feather broom, And shake it on the street, Where rubbish you pile upon the road,...
NOW listen. Out in the country, close by the roadside, stood a pleasant house; you have seen one like it, no doubt, very often. In front lay a little fenced-in garden, full of bloo...
Once upon a time there was a town called Atpat. In it there lived a Brahman. For many years he lived happily and cultivated his fields of rice and grain. But one day his wife gave...
The East and the West, the Past and the Present, meet in the Japanese Civil Code, which became law in January, 1893. It is the first codification of private law that Japan ever had...
Who kill'd Cock Robin? I, said the sparrow, With my bow and arrow, I kill'd Cock Robin. Who see him die? I, said the fly, With my little eye, And I see him die. Who catch'd his blo...
The following relation is given in the additions to Camden's Britannia, co. Bucks, p. 318. Tradition says the Black Prince, who held Hartwell, had large possessions at Prince's Ris...
Rhymes upon natural objects and rural sayings are perhaps more generally interesting than any other relics of the popular anthology. They not unfrequently contain scientific truths...
The monk Anchin was young in years but old in scholarship. Every day for many hours he read the Great Books of the Good Law and never wearied, and hard characters were not hard to...
THIS, O my Best Beloved, is a story--a new and a wonderful story--a story quite different from the other stories--a story about The Most Wise Sovereign Suleiman-bin-Daoud--Solomon...
Once upon a time there lived a king and queen who ruled over a country so small that you could easily walk round it in one day. They were both very good, simple people; not very wi...
About Ivan the Fool and His Two Brothers, Semen the Warrior and Taras the Paunch, and His Dumb Sister Malanya, and About the Old Devil and the Three Young Devils I. In a certain ki...
There once lived a queen who ruled over the Flowery Isles, whose husband, to her extreme grief, died a few years after their marriage. On being left a widow she devoted herself alm...
Here's a health unto our maister, The founder of the feast, And I hope to God wi' all my heart, His soul in heaven mid rest. That everything mid prosper That ever he tiak in hand,...
BY ISABEL ECCLESTON MACKAY There lives in a town that is called Chu-Bo A little Jap girl named Nami-Ko. She learns to spell and she learns to write, But her A B C's are the oddest...
A Froebel Finger Play Look, my dear, at this window clear. See how the light shines through in here. If you would always see the light, Keep your heart's window clean and bright.
(From one of Marie's Lays.) There lived once, in Britain, an old knight who was lord of Caerwent, a city situated on the River Douglas. He was wealthy and avaricious, and the sole...
In the midst of a sandy desert, somewhere in Asia, the eyes of travellers are refreshed by the sight of a high mountain covered with beautiful trees, among which the glitter of foa...
Colour-superstitions, though rapidly disappearing, still obtain in the remote rural districts. The following lines were obtained from the East of England: Blue is true, Yellow's je...
He tossed the ball so high, so high, He tossed the ball so low; He tossed the ball in the Jew's garden, And the Jews were all below. Oh, then out came the Jew's daughter, She was d...
(Variant of the First Chapter) The litigation "about the seizure in the Government of Penza, County of Krasnoslobodsk, by the landed proprietor and ex-lieutenant of the Guards, Iva...
BY SAMUEL LOVER You see, sir, there was a colonel wanst, in times back, that owned a power of land about here--but God keep uz, they said he didn't come by it honestly, but did a c...
Catharine and Clement, be here, be here, Some of your apples, and some of your beer: Some for Peter, and some for Paul, And some for Him that made us all: Clement was a good man, F...
In a country which is full of wild beasts of all sorts there once lived a jackal and a hedgehog, and, unlike though they were, the two animals made great friends, and were often se...
There were, once upon a time, a king and queen of Denmark who had an only son, a handsome and clever lad. When he was eighteen, his father, the old king, fell very ill, and there w...