1. "Once on a Time"

The Enchanted Island of Yew

by L. Frank Baum

I am going to tell a story, one of those tales of astonishing
adventures that happened years and years and years ago. Perhaps you
wonder why it is that so many stories are told of "once on a time",
and so few of these days in which we live; but that is easily
explained.

In the old days, when the world was young, there were no
automobiles nor flying-machines to make one wonder; nor were there
railway trains, nor telephones, nor mechanical inventions of any sort
to keep people keyed up to a high pitch of excitement. Men and women
lived simply and quietly. They were Nature's children, and breathed
fresh air into their lungs instead of smoke and coal gas; and tramped
through green meadows and deep forests instead of riding in street
cars; and went to bed when it grew dark and rose with the sun--which
is vastly different from the present custom. Having no books to read
they told their adventures to one another and to their little ones;
and the stories were handed down from generation to generation and
reverently believed.

Those who peopled the world in the old days, having nothing but
their hands to depend on, were to a certain extent helpless, and so
the fairies were sorry for them and ministered to their wants
patiently and frankly, often showing themselves to those they
befriended.

So people knew fairies in those days, my dear, and loved them,
together with all the ryls and knooks and pixies and nymphs and other
beings that belong to the hordes of immortals. And a fairy tale was
a thing to be wondered at and spoken of in awed whispers; for no one
thought of doubting its truth.

To-day the fairies are shy; for so many curious inventions of
men have come into use that the wonders of Fairyland are somewhat
tame beside them, and even the boys and girls can not be so easily
interested or surprised as in the old days. So the sweet and gentle
little immortals perform their tasks unseen and unknown, and live
mostly in their own beautiful realms, where they are almost unthought
of by our busy, bustling world.

Yet when we come to story-telling the marvels of our own age
shrink into insignificance beside the brave deeds and absorbing
experiences of the days when fairies were better known; and so we go
back to "once on a time" for the tales that we most love--and that
children have ever loved since mankind knew that fairies exist.