A collection of true and fictional tales from various sources about wild, domestic, and mythical animals.

A companion to Three Minute Tales compiles another delightful collection of entertaining stories from around the world to read or tell on any occasion. Simultaneous.

Herein are 63 illustrated true stories about animals which every child will enjoy! In this book you will find stories about bears, otters, eagles, horses, dogs, dolphins, ants, frogs, elephants, parrots, snakes, lions, Cayman, weasels and many, many more besides. "The Animal Story Book" will delight both old and young, as one may find therein pen-portraits of most of the remarkable animals that have interested the world since primitive times. Herein are stories like: Saï The Panther The Buzzard And The Priest A Rat’s Tale The Dog Of Montargis The Taming of an Otter The Adventures Of Pyramus The Dancing Dog Monkey Stories The War Horse Of Alexander Madame Théophile And The Parrot plus many, many more. The 66 pen and ink illustrations by H J Ford give added life to the stories. Unlike his fairy collections, these tales compiled by Andrew Lang are all "true" with some species descriptions coming from nature journals of the time and others being more personal memoir/anecdote type stories of individual's pets. Not as well known today, was that the author Alexandre Dumas maintained a veritable menagerie, as did the artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, and Andrew Lang has featured many stories about the various animals in their menageries. But, if anyone believes that style does not appeal to the young readers, let him open this book and read to any intelligent child of nine years Dumas’ description of Mysouf the cat, and Pritchard the dog. ============= KEYWORDS/TAGS: Children’s stories, Childrens, Folklore, Fairy, Folk, Tales, bedtime story, legends, storyteller, fables, moral tales, myths, happiness, laughter, Animal, story book, Andrew Lang, H J Ford, H. J. Ford, Illustrated, illustrations, Tom, adventure, bear, paris, Saï, panther, buzzard, priest, Cowper, hares, rat’s tale. Tail, Snake, elephant, dog, montargis, beaver, build a house, war horse, Alexander, ants, taming, otter, Androcles, lion, Monsieur, Alexander Dumas, beasts, Pyramus, weasel, wolves, highland dogs, sally, zoo, cayman, fido, siege, Mr. Gully, pliny, history of cagnotte, Still waters, deep; dancing dog, Theo, horses: jane, betsy, blanche, Madame théophile, parrot, battle of the mullets, dolphins, Monkey, ship, desert, home, rather be, Nests, Fire-eating, djijam, Oscar, Dolphin, play, starling, segringen, Grateful, Gazelle, tortoise, Cockatoo, otter, cat, Builders, weavers, faithful, favour, turtles, cod, Bungey, jacko, Signora, lori, linnet, popinjay, Patch, chickens, fierce, falcon scotch, scots, terrier, raven, funeral, strange, tiger, Halcyons, biographer, frog, woodpecker, tapping, hollow, oak tree, water, capocier, mate, Owls, marmots, Eagle, nest

"The Animal Story Book" by various and compiled by Andrew Lang is one of Lang's famed compilations of charming tales from around the world. 'Tom': an Adventure in the Life of a Bear in Paris, Saï the Panther, The Buzzard and the Priest, Cowper and his Hares, A Rat Tale, Snake Stories, What Elephants can Do, The Dog of Montargis, How a Beaver builds his House, The War Horse of Alexander, Stories about Bears, Stories about Ants, The Taming of an Otter, The Story of Androcles and the Lion, Monsieur Dumas and his Beasts, and The Adventures of Pyramus are just some of the tales in this volume.

Children who have read our Fairy Books may have noticed that there are not so very many fairies in the stories after all. The most common characters are birds, beasts, and fishes, who talk and act like Christians. The reason of this is that the first people who told the stories were not very clever, or, if they were clever, they had never been taught to read and write, or to distinguish between Vegetable, Animal, and Mineral. They took it that all things were 'much of a muchness:' they were not proud, and held that beast and bird could talk like themselves, only, of course, in a different language. After offering, then, so many Fairy Books (though the stories are not all told yet), we now present you (in return for a coin or two) with a book about the friends of children and of fairies—the beasts. The stories are all true, more or less, but it is possible that Monsieur Dumas and Monsieur Théophile Gautier rather improved upon their tales. I own that I have my doubts about the bears and serpents in the tales by the Baron Wogan. This gentleman's ancestors were famous Irish people. One of them [viii] held Cromwell's soldiers back when they were pursuing Charles II. after Worcester fight. He also led a troop of horse from Dover to the Highlands, where he died of a wound, after fighting for the King. The next Wogan was a friend of Pope and Swift; he escaped from prison after Preston fight, in 1715, and, later, rescued Prince Charlie's mother from confinement in Austria, and took her to marry King James. He next became Governor of Don Quixote's province, La Mancha, in Spain, and was still alive and merry in 1752. Baron Wogan, descended from these heroes, saw no longer any king to fight for, so he went to America and fought bears. No doubt he was as brave as his ancestors, but whether all his stories of serpents are absolutely correct I am not so certain. People have also been heard to express doubts about Mr. Waterton and the Cayman. The terrible tale of Mr.