The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women in country places tell  to their grandchildren. Nobody knows how old they are, or who told them first. The children  of Ham, Shem and Japhet may have listened to them in the Ark, on wet days. Hector’s little  boy may have heard them in Troy Town, for it is certain that Homer knew them, and that  some of them were written down in Egypt about the time of Moses.