The Way Through the Woods — One Hundred Classic Fairy Tales

The greatest fairy tales of all time.

The 100 tales collected here throw open wide the gates to the realm of fairyland. Inside are princes and princesses, giants and dwarfs, heroes, heroines, simpletons, rogues, wizards, witches, ogres, trolls, elves, magical artefacts, and all manner of talking birds and beasts.

As G. K. Chesterton has observed, fairyland is a place where happiness hangs upon a single thread: “Cinderella may have a dress woven on supernatural looms and blazing with unearthly brilliance; but she must be back when the clock strikes twelve. The king may invite fairies to the christening, but he must invite all the fairies or frightful results will follow. Bluebeard's wife may open all doors but one. A promise is broken to a cat, and the whole world goes wrong… A promise is broken to a yellow dwarf, and the whole world goes wrong.”

This is also a world of contradiction and disproportion; where honesty may be a virtue, but so is the ability to tell the most outrageous lies conceivable. Here, the prize for treading on a cat’s tail, is a princess; and the penalty for expressing gratitude to a goblin, is a lifelong curse.

In compiling this anthology, we have tried to include as many “tale types” as possible, and as much of the varied landscape of the fairy world—deserts, icefields, enchanted forests, underwater kingdoms—as we could fit in. Our principal sources are the great European collections of fairy tales and folk tales as compiled by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Peter Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, Joseph Jacobs, and Alexander Afanasyev. But there are tales from further afield as well; from Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

We have classified the tales thematically, and spread them evenly across ten chapters:

1. The Classic Characters: Heroes, Heroines, and their Foes

2. Birds and Beasts

3. Little; Big

4. The Ship of Fools

5. Quick Minds and Sharp Wits

6. The Royal Court

7. Into the World: Journeys, Quests, and Adventures

8. Magic and Witchcraft

9. Extraordinary Tales of Extraordinary Things

10. Tales for Winter

We hope this structure will aid readers somewhat in their explorations. At the same time, we concur with W. H. Auden, who writes, “the way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.”