SEPTEMBER seems to me to be the fairy among the months of the year. She is so crowned with gold, so full of play and magic spells, she has no work to do, and it is she who transforms the green woods and gray marshes to wonderlands of fairy fire, and brings the great pale moon back round and full night after night into the skies. Yes, September has a magic!

That being agreed, I am going to talk about a number of fairy books that I have never seen before, and which you, too, may have missed, though some of them have been enjoying themselves in this world for quite a while. Anyhow, they are all good, which is particularly necessary with a fairy story, for the bad ones, like the bad fairies, are very bad indeed, and we want nothing whatever to do with them.

The books I shall speak about contain stories from all over the world, for I suppose there has never been a language spoken that has not been used for telling fairy tales. Whether in hot lands or cold, among savages or the most cultivated nations-why, not a moment passes in which some one, somewhere, is not telling a fairy tale, or listening to one, or reading one, or perhaps writing a new one. Which makes it delightfully probable that we shall always have them with us, however scarce the fairies may have made themselves in these prosaic and practical days.

I remember telling you, long ago, of Selma Lagerlöf's Swedish story of Little Nils and his adventures, as he flew from place to place on the back of a wild goose. Later on, she wrote another book about him, called, "The Further Adventure of Nils," which, if possible, is even better than the first. It begins with the story of a little dog who came near being shot, and it takes you hither and thither over Sweden, which is a beautiful . country. Many strange and exciting things happen to Nils and his friends of the field and wood and air; almost do you feel the swish of the wind in your ears and hear the wild cry of the geese as you read the pages. Nils was certainly in luck! But you are almost as fortunate as he if you have his book.

To travel from a country that is sometimes fearfully cold to another that is always warm, is an easy matter if you chance to possess the magic carpet of the prince in the "Arabian Nights," or, not having that, a book of the right kind can manage the thing excellently for you. So, having left Nils in his white land, we will go straight to Cuba, and see what it is that they have to tell us there, among the oranges and hibiscus flowers.

"As Old as the Moon" is the name of the book, and in it are the stories the Carib and Antilles Indians told each other when the world was younger than it is now, and before the white man

In

had come to drive them out of existence. this little book we find out how the sun and the moon came to Cuba, with many other interesting things. The Indians who left these stories, to last longer than they themselves have done, were a gentle and poetical people, and you will love the stories.

There are two books of Irish stories-Ireland being an island, too, made me think of them next -one by Seumas MacManus, "Donegal Fairy Tales," the other by Yeats. The Irish were a great deal fonder of fighting than the Caribs, and the stories they tell are full of fights, fights between giants and mortals, between good men and men who were bad enough to deserve being beaten. There is lots of fun in the tales, however, sly Irish wit, many a moment of amusing trickery, and plenty of fairies and witches, spells and transformations.

Jamaica also has her stories, stories told by the negroes in their tiny cabins, some of which have come all the way from Africa in the early times when the slaves were being carried to the West Indies as well as to our country. But they came from a very different part of the Dark Continent, and the stories told in Jamaica are quite different from those we know through Uncle Remus. They are animal stories, to be sure, but that is their only resemblance.

Pamela Coleman Smith collected a lot of them into a book called "Annancy Stories," Annancy being the name of the spider, who is the hero of almost every story. I was in Jamaica part of the time she spent there, and once in a while I went with her to the cabins to hear the old women tell the tales in their strange English, which you can hardly understand at first. They would sit crosslegged on the floor, and sway a bit back and forth, and croon their words. They usually had a duppy-which is a ghost-in the stories, and very afraid of duppies all the Jamaica blacks are, I can tell you. But there was fun in the stories, too, and the old women would laugh and laugh when they got to the funny parts.

A book of English fairy tales called "Fairy Gold," by Ernest Rhys, is one of the best I found. The stories are told so charmingly, and are so good themselves. Mr. Rhys has got some very old and long-forgotten ones, which leads him to say that "a fairy tale, like a cat, has nine lives. It can pass into many queer shapes, and yet not die. You may cut off its head, and drown it in sentiment or sea-water, or tie a moral to its tail; but it will still survive, and be found sitting safe by the fire some winter night."

"Fairy Gold" has the best sort of stories, the ones that begin with "Once upon a time," and

have princesses and younger sons and magic transformations, and all the splendid things one looks for in the real fairy story. The sweet and the gentle and the lovely and the brave triumph finally over all manner of wicked enchantments or evil witches, which is as it should be, or why should one read fairy stories?

I think you will like particularly the story of Melilot, and of the three frog-men with their eyes that were very, very eager, but not cruel, and with their web-feet. Never a more lovable child than little Melilot came to bless a story, and one is glad when things turn out so well for her after her troubles, and wishes one might go with her when she goes so sweetly out of the story with her soldier beside her.

Then there is the tale of the "Bag of Minutes.” You won't find a better in a bag of days! You see, you must certainly ask your parents for "Fairy Gold" when your next birthday comes round.

I never seem to be able to get entirely away from Howard Pyle when I talk of good stories. Here is "Twilight Land," which is brilliant, for all its dim title, with tales of Oriental people and mysterious adventures. Proud princesses and adventurous youths in turbans do all sorts of amazing things, helped by genie and clever old men whom one does not suspect of being magicians until things point to it too persistently. Then there are some delightful pictures, also made by Mr. Pyle, good, oh, quite as good as the stories, for he knew how.

Mr. Pyle had a sister Katherine who also loves to tell fairy stories, and there is a book by her, called, "Where the Wind Blows," that has ten, each from a different nation. The stories, Miss Pyle says, are almost as old as the Wind himself. But I think they will be new to you. Germany and Japan and India and England and Greece and other lands come with a story to tell. It will be hard, when you have finished, to say which of them all you liked best. Probably you will manage to get round it by speaking for the one you read last. But if you re-read one of them again, you'll find yourself changing your mind, and voting for that one.

A fairy story that takes a whole book to tell is "The Flint Heart," by Eden Phillpotts. It is interested in things that happened about five thousand years ago, and Mr. Phillpotts says that if you think times were dull then, you never made a bigger mistake in your life. "It was the liveliest age before history," he insists, "in fact, no one ever had a dull moment."

Nor will you as you read the book, which begins by telling about Brokotockotick, who was

simply called Brok behind his back, and of another man whose name was merely Fum. It is Fum, however, who makes the flint heart, helped by the Spirit of Thunder. It was a hard and dangerous heart, and many things happen because of it. But in the end you will be glad that it was made-and surely glad of the story that tells its history. It all happens in Dartmoor, England, and though the queer stone huts of the New Stone People have disappeared, the country remains not so unlike what it was in Fum's day, as you may see for yourselves if you go there.

I dare say a number of you have read George MacDonald's "At the Back of the North Wind." I can't imagine any one missing that story; in fact, one ought to read it more than once, as is true of all good stories. It is impossible not to finish it without tears in your eyes, even though the ending is not really unhappy; but the tears one sheds over a story do not hurt. Surely the little hero must have been glad to get back of the North Wind once more, though he could never come here again. And so you close the book half glad and half sorry, which, very likely, when the time comes, is the way one closes the Book of Life. And who can say but that the sorry part is as beautiful as the rest!

Now I must speak of one more story, a new one last year, at least to us who speak English. For it was written by a Frenchman, Anatole France, and translated by Mrs. John Lane into the prettiest English, with little songs running through it, songs that turn into music right on the page-"Honey-Bee," it is called.

This story tells about the young Lord of Blanchelande and his foster-sister, the exquisite

Honey-Bee of Clarides, after whom the book is named, with whose good and beautiful mother the little Lord George came to live when his own mother died. The two children grew up together, and loved each other so dearly that they never forgot each other. Not though George was captured by the nixies who lived in the lake, and kept a prisoner for many years in a wonderful crystal palace, while Honey-Bee was carried away by the dwarfs to the heart of the mountain, and became their princess, and was loved and wooed by their king, a gentle and kindly dwarf with a heart of gold, besides all the treasures of the world.

Of course I am not going to tell you all that happened, nor what it was like in the kingdom of the dwarfs, nor in the nixies' palace. Nor how King Loc helped George to escape, and what followed upon that escape. For that is just what the book tells, and tells so beautifully.

After you have read it all, you will have a new idea of the dwarfs, the little, industrious people who live under the earth, and of their king, the noble Loc, who could give away so generously what he loved best. The book is like a handful of fragrant flowers, so sweet and fresh and lovely it is, and I advise you to go to your book-shelf and pull it out and read it many times.

This will do for one month. There are as many good fairy stories as there are yellow leaves floating in the clear September air when the wind blows, and it is not possible to speak of them all, any more than you can count the leaves. Some of the latter you will bring home to press and keep; and so I, too, have brought home to you a few of the stories, to treasure for all times.

3. A nose. 4. A cloth dealer. 5. What no one likes to make. Insignificant. H. R. LUCE (age 14), League Member.

CONNECTED WORD-SQUARES
(Silver Badge, St. Nicholas League Competition)

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I. UPPER LEFT-HAND SQUARE: 1. A swamp. 2. A port of Peru. 3. Severity. 4. To chide. 5. Robust. II. UPPER RIGHT-HAND SQUARE: 1. A small heron. 2. Rank. 3. Plunder. 4. Prepares for publication. 5. Rigid.

III. CENTRAL SQUARE: 1. A substance used in making

3. A variety of quartz.

bread. 2. A masculine name. 4. The evil one. 5. Tendency. IV. LOWER LEFT-HAND SQUARE: 1. Established custom. 2. Flavor. 3. A salt of soda. 4. A statue. Assessed.

5.

V. LOWER RIGHT-HAND SQUARE: 1. A play. 2. A noisy feast. 3. To turn aside. 4. To swallow up. 5. HENRY WILSON (age 13).

To vary.

CONNECTED STARS

(Silver Badge, St. Nicholas League Competition)

3

3. An

CROSS-WORDS: 1. In compass. 2. A negative. important island of Europe. 4. A convent. 5. A color. 6. A royal residence. 7. To place securely. 8. To depart. 9. In compass. 10. Thus. 11. A moral fable. 12. A beautiful city of Austria. 13. The river of forgetfulness. 14. To disfigure. 15. To invigorate. 16. To exist. 17. In compass.

From 1 to 2, upright; from 3 to 4, great fear; from 5 to 6, to toss; from 7 to 8, to go in.

Central stars reading downward (nine letters), a famous queen of long ago.

HELENA A. IRVINE (age 12).