Andrew Lang

The Fantastical World of Magical Beasts


Скачать книгу

rel="nofollow" href="#u45a8dd3e-197f-5af7-a42a-53ba03b9f9e3">The Good Sea Monster (Abbie Phillips Walker)

       Hilda's Mermaid (Abbie Phillips Walker)

       The Tell-Tale Goblin (Abbie Phillips Walker)

       The Revenge of the Gnomes (Abbie Phillips Walker)

       The Rain Elves (Abbie Phillips Walker)

       The Dwarf with the Golden Beard (Katharine Pyle)

       The Great White Bear and the Trolls (Katharine Pyle)

       The King of the Buffaloes (Katharine Pyle)

       The Farmer and the Pixy (Katharine Pyle)

       Mudjee Monedo (Katharine Pyle)

       The Four Wishes (Katharine Pyle)

       Beowulf (Hamilton Wright Mabie)

       The Gorgon’s Head (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

       The Chimæra (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

       The Minotaur (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

       The Pygmies (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

       The Dragon’s Teeth (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

       The Golden Fleece (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

       The Fire Bird

       Story of Lyubim Tsarevich and the Winged Wolf

       The Demon's Dance (Kazimierz Władysław Wóycicki)

       Lidushka and the Water Demon's Wife (Matěj Mikšíček)

       Yanechek and the Water Demon (Josef Kajetán Tyl)

      (Ruth Stiles Gannett)

       Table of Contents

       Chapter One MY FATHER MEETS THE CAT

       Chapter Two MY FATHER RUNS AWAY

       Chapter Three MY FATHER FINDS THE ISLAND

       Chapter Four MY FATHER FINDS THE RIVER

       Chapter Five MY FATHER MEETS SOME TIGERS

       Chapter Six MY FATHER MEETS A RHINOCEROS

       Chapter Seven MY FATHER MEETS A LION

       Chapter Eight MY FATHER MEETS A GORILLA

       Chapter Nine MY FATHER MAKES A BRIDGE

       Chapter Ten MY FATHER FINDS THE DRAGON

      Chapter One

       MY FATHER MEETS THE CAT

       Table of Contents

      One cold rainy day when my father was a little boy, he met an old alley cat on his street. The cat was very drippy and uncomfortable so my father said, "Wouldn't you like to come home with me?"

      This surprised the cat — she had never before met anyone who cared about old alley cats — but she said, "I'd be very much obliged if I could sit by a warm furnace, and perhaps have a saucer of milk."

      "We have a very nice furnace to sit by," said my father, "and I'm sure my mother has an extra saucer of milk."

      My father and the cat became good friends but my father's mother was very upset about the cat. She hated cats, particularly ugly old alley cats. "Elmer Elevator," she said to my father, "if you think I'm going to give that cat a saucer of milk, you're very wrong. Once you start feeding stray alley cats you might as well expect to feed every stray in town, and I am not going to do it!"

      This made my father very sad, and he apologized to the cat because his mother had been so rude. He told the cat to stay anyway, and that somehow he would bring her a saucer of milk each day. My father fed the cat for three weeks, but one day his mother found the cat's saucer in the cellar and she was extremely angry. She whipped my father and threw the cat out the door, but later on my father sneaked out and found the cat. Together they went for a walk in the park and tried to think of nice things to talk about. My father said, "When I grow up I'm going to have an airplane. Wouldn't it be wonderful to fly just anywhere you might think of!"

      "Would you like to fly very, very much?" asked the cat.

      "I certainly would. I'd do anything if I could fly."

      "Well," said the cat, "If you'd really like to fly that much, I think I know of a sort of a way you might get to fly while you're still a little boy."

      "You mean you know where I could get an airplane?"

      "Well, not exactly an airplane, but something even better. As you can see, I'm an old cat now, but in my younger days I was quite a traveler. My traveling days are over but last spring I took just one more trip and sailed to the Island of Tangerina, stopping at the port of Cranberry. Well, it just so happened that I missed