文档介绍：The Arabian Nights
Lang, Andrew
Published: 1898
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About Lang:
Andrew Lang (March 31, 1844, Selkirk – July 20, 1912, Banchory, Kin-
cardineshire) was a prolific Scots man of letters. He was a poet, novelist,
and literary critic, and contributor to anthropology. He now is best
known as the collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures
at St Andrews University are named for him. Source: Wikipedia
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Preface
The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women in
country places tell to their grandchildren. Nobody knows how old they
are, or who told them first. The children of Ham, Shem and Japhet may
have listened to them in the Ark, on wet days. Hector's little boy may
have heard them in Troy Town, for it is certain that Homer knew them,
and that some of them were written down in Egypt about the time of
Moses.
People in different countries tell them differently, but they are always
the same stories, really, whether among little Zulus, at the Cape, or little
Eskimo, near the North Pole. The changes are only in matters of manners
and customs; such as wearing clothes or not, meeting lions who talk in
the warm countries, or talking bears in the cold countries. There are
plenty of kings and queens in the fairy tales, just because long ago there
were plenty of kings in the country. A gentleman who would be a squire
now was a kind of king in Scotland in very old times, and the same in
other places. These old stories, never forgotten, were taken down in writ-
ing in different ages, but mostly in this century, in all sorts of languages.
These ancient stories are the contents of the Fairy books.
Now "The Arabian Nights," some of which, but not nearly all, are giv-
en in this volume, are only fairy tales of the East. The people of Asia, Ar-
abia, and Persia told them in their own way, not for children, but for
grown-up people. There were no novels then, nor any printed books, of
course; but there were people wh