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This book is a collection of nine fairy tales from Sri Lanka. The first eight are drawn from the legends contained in the Mahavamsa - a classic Singhalese work of history and traditions. The first eight of the following little papers are the outcome of a desire on the writer’s part to put within the wider reach of an English reading public, in the form of connected narrative, a few characteristic examples of the ‘Mahavamsa’ tales. It is in Dr. Geiger’s scholarly translation of the classic Sinhalese work, a mine of blended history, myth, and fantasy that he has mainly delved. The remaining sketch was written to amuse himself and appease the Editor of the Times of Ceylon Christmas Number. King and Queen reigning in a far country had a little daughter, and at her birth they ordered the soothsayers to make divinations, for they looked for a fair and auspicious future for this lovely child. And drawing lines in the sand and making study of the stars they foretold that the child would grow up fairer than her mother, who was a most beautiful Princess and the only daughter of a King. But they prophesied that she would be wayward and troublesome, a prey to strange longings. And the child blossomed into a maiden lovelier than any in her father’s Kingdom, but capricious and willful, and so desirous of admiration that for very shame her parents could not suffer her, and became cold to this Princess who did them so little honour. Thus this book contains good stories to make it a worth-readable. The book is a reprint of the1930 edition.
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ISBN : 9788121232364
Pages : 104
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