An old bamboo cutter finds a tiny baby girl, only a few inches tall inside a bamboo stalk, and wonders if she is a fairy.

In this entrancing collection, author Grace James brings together an array of Japanese folk tales and fairy tales, all rendered in exquisitely lyrical language.

This collection of Japanese fairy tales is the outcome of a suggestion made to me indirectly through a friend by Mr. Andrew Lang. They have been translated from

Pierre Loti in Madame Chrysanthème, Gilbert and Sullivan in The Mikado, and Sir Edwin Arnold in Seas and Lands, gave us the impression that Japan was a real fa