145O: Lost Fairy Tale Book

This was a hardback book, with a picture of a beautiful blonde girl on the front with a well and green hills in the background, and I recollect it being blue? But that could be wrong.
It was a compilation of different fairy tales and except for the ‘seven brothers into seven crows’ tale, none of them I have ever come across since.
The tales included stories about;

A little girl who lied a lot and then got given a ring and the ring squeezed her finger and went bright red when she lied.

 A little elf who went to a house with blue flowers in the garden and somehow he was invisible and he went inside the house where the other elves were baking and tried to steal toffee but got caught.

 A wicked magician who had a cloak made out of enchanted beads and somehow moths got to it and it disintegrated and beads spilled everywhere and the villagers took them.

And , the one I remember most clearly was a tale about a wicked mother who had two daughters, one beautiful and one plain – she went away and told the girls to cook clean etc. but the ugly sister wouldn’t do it and so the pretty one did everything but when the mother returned the ugly sister lied and said she did everything so the pretty sister ran into the woods. In the woods she found the house where an old woman lived and so she asked to stay, she made the woman delicious apple pie and cleaned her whole house and so the woman said pick a brooch and a cloak. She picked a ratty old cloak and a plain lark pin, even though the woman had many fine ones. When she left the house the sun shone on the cloak and it was rich velvet with precious jewels all over it. When she got home her mother and sister were so mean she went out to the well and cried but when she sobbed it came out sounding beautiful and a passing prince wanted to marry her. Her sister was jealous and so went into the woods and found the old woman but she did nothing and made the woman cook for her and then demanded a cloak and brooch. She took the fanciest cloak and a emerald toad pin. When she went outside the cloak turned into a motheaten piece of cloth and when she got home and went to the well and cried but it came out sounding like a toad croak.
There were more tales but I can’t remember them. I specifically want the compilation, rather than individual adoptions of the tales. If anyone knows about this it would make me so happy as my mum accidentally gave this book away and it was my childhood favorite.

 

6 thoughts on “145O: Lost Fairy Tale Book

  1. Morven Watt

    Unfortunately it is neither of the two books listed above (I checked) but I love the Andrew Lang books! Ended up buying a bunch of them on Amazon!!

    Reply
  2. Pamela

    I’m not sure if you’re still searching for this but it could be a compilation of Enid Blyton stories. The third story you described sounds like “The Enchanted Cloak” and the fourth story sounds like “The Little Candy House”, both by Enid Blyton.

    Reply
    1. Morven

      I just ordered Enid Blytons fireside tales and it looks promising – I’ve been looking for this book for about six years now (since I moved to the states ) and if this is it I may well cry!!!

      Reply

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