The Story of Prince Fairyfoot

PREFATORY NOTE

"THE STORY OF PRINCE FAIRYFOOT" was originally intended to be the first
of a series, under the general title of "Stories from the Lost
Fairy-Book, Re-told by the Child Who Read Them," concerning which Mrs.
Burnett relates:

"When I was a child of six or seven, I had given to me a book of
fairy-stories, of which I was very fond. Before it had been in my
possession many months, it disappeared, and, though since then I have
tried repeatedly, both in England and America, to find a copy of it, I
have never been able to do so. I asked a friend in the Congressional
Library at Washington--a man whose knowledge of books is almost
unlimited--to try to learn something about it for me. But even he could
find no trace of it; and so we concluded it must have been out of print
some time. I always remembered the impression the stories had made on me,
and, though most of them had become very faint recollections, I
frequently told them to children, with additions of my own. The story of
Fairyfoot I had promised to tell a little girl; and, in accordance with
the promise, I developed the outline I remembered, introduced new
characters and conversation, wrote it upon note paper, inclosed it in a
decorated satin cover, and sent it to her. In the first place, it was
re-written merely for her, with no intention of publication; but she was
so delighted with it, and read and reread it so untiringly, that it
occurred to me other children might like to hear it also. So I made the
plan of developing and re-writing the other stories in like manner, and
having them published under the title of 'Stories from the Lost
Fairy-Book, Re-told by the Child Who Read Them.'"

The little volume in question Mrs. Burnett afterwards discovered to be
entitled "Granny's Wonderful Chair and the Tales it Told."


THE STORY OF PRINCE FAIRYFOOT

PART I

Once upon a time, in the days of the fairies, there was in the far west
country a kingdom which was called by the name of Stumpinghame. It was a
rather curious country in several ways. In the first place, the people
who lived there thought that Stumpinghame was all the world; they thought
there was no world at all outside Stumpinghame. And they thought that the
people of Stumpinghame knew everything that could possibly be known, and
that what they did not know was of no consequence at all.

One idea common in Stumpinghame was really very unusual indeed. It was a
peculiar taste in the matter of feet. In Stumpinghame, the larger a
person's feet were, the more beautiful and elegant he or she was
considered; and the more aristocratic and nobly born a man was, the more
immense were his feet. Only the very lowest and most