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CHRISTMAS TALES
OF FLANDERS

KEEP THIS BOOK CLEAN

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CHRISTMAS
TALES OF
FLANDERS

I L L U S T R A T E D   B Y
JEAN DE BOSSCHERE


NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
MCMXVII

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PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE COMPLETE PRESS
WEST NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
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INTRODUCTION

HE CHRISTMAS TALES OF FLANDERS presented in this volume are popularfables and legends current in Flanders and Brabant, which have forcenturies been told to children throughout Belgium. Their origin isdoubtful, as all literature handed down by oral tradition must be. Agood many of these stories are found in a different guise in the legendsof other nations. “Seppy” is closely akin to the rhyme of “The Old Manwho lived in the Wood”; and the prototypes of others will be readilyrecognized; but all of them have peculiar Flemish traits. They have thepicturesqueness characteristic of the country which produced such aglorious school of painting, and the freshness of their presentation isa high tribute to the creative imagination of the Flanders folk.Sometimes they are primitive to a degree, and in such tales as “SimpleJohn” and “The Boy who always said the Wrong Thing,” the storyteller{vi}attributes the most elementary and artless mentality to his heroes, soas to explain the extravagant adventures he relates. These tales occupyfor the Flemish the place nursery rhymes take in England, and as thenursery rhymes have been collected in England at various times and indifferent forms and guises, so the Flemish folk-tales have also beencollected in various ways and in various parts of Flanders. Messrs.Demont and D

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