Fairytales and Nursery Rhymes
Please browse with caution. Children are welcome here, but this archive is not specifically geared for children. It should go without saying that traditional fairytales, fables, nursery rhymes, and "classic" literature are not congruent with the "politically correct" ideals of today. There will be disparaging and discriminatory language used in some places, and some out-dated beliefs that range from absurdly ridiculous to outright offensive. I do not automatically endorse any third-party opinion in this or other media, and have simply left the stories intact for historical purposes. After all, "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it", and it is my hope that these particular flavours of disrespect will be remembered not so it can be perpetuated but so it shan't be repeated in the present or future.
Fairytales, Fables, and Other Stories
Bedtime stories that many children grew up hearing, such as The Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Little Mermaid, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Anansi the Spider Man, Momotaro, and Aesop's Fables.
Mother Goose and other short rhymes, sometimes nonsensical, sometimes with meaning. The origin of Mother Goose has been credited to many authors, but there is no clear evidence who was the first to go by the name of "Mother Goose".
Beloved books and classic literature that are now in the public domain, as well as the source materials for the fairytales, fables, nursery rhymes, and lullabies with their original illustrations.
Best Loved Folktales of the World
As selected by Joanna Cole.
The book I grew up on!
Traditional definitions of unpopular modern words. The evolution of language is a touchy subject.
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Want something specific added?
I am open to submissions! If you find an old book in the public domain with fairytales, fables, or nursery rhymes in it, feel free to send it my way! I have fairytales from all six inhabited continents on my computer that I'm working through, but the majority of my nursery rhymes are from the British Isles. I would love to have some from more international sources.
Here in the USA, a work enters the public domain if:
- It was published 95 years or more ago.
- It has been 70 years since the author's death or the work's publication, whichever is later.
- It was published without a copyright notice before 1977.
- It was published before March 1989 and a copyright was not registered withing five years of the date of publication.
- It was published before 1964 and the copyright was not renewed 28 years later.
You may read more on the U.S.'s public domain policies here.
If you want even more than what I've been able to gather together here, please visit FairyTalez.com! They boast a collection of over 3800 classic tales, plus new ones written by their users. If you crave even more than this, online libraries such as Project Gutenberg and Archive.org have thousands upon thousands of books to peruse, from fiction to non-fiction.