Canadian Fairy Tales

Canadian Fairy Tales is a collection of 26 of Native American folk tales gathered from across Canada by Professor Cyrus MacMillan, who did not indicate the origin tribe of each story. The collection was originally published in 1922, and several tales within contain themes of creation. This is MacMillan’s second collection of fairy tales. Like the Grimms Brothers did in Europe, MacMillan traveled the country seeking tales from the First Nations people in Canada.

The tales in this collection, like those in "Canadian Wonder Tales," were gathered in various parts of Canada—by river and lake and ocean where sailors and fishermen still watch the stars; in forest clearings where lumbermen yet retain some remnant of the old vanished voyageur life and where Indians still barter for their furs; in remote country places where women spin while they speak with reverence of their fathers' days. The skeleton of each story has been left for the most part unchanged, although the language naturally differs somewhat from that of the story-tellers from whose lips the writer heard them.

It is too often forgotten that long before the time of Arthur and his Round Table these tales were known