Violet Brunton - "Silver Magic" (1929) [Spirit of the Ages Collection]

Silver Magic (1929) is a collection of traditional fairy and folk tales edited by Florence Roma Muir Wilson who was known

by the literary pseudonym of Romer Wilson. Those tales include: "The Miraculous Pitcher"; "Simmerwater: A Yorkshire

Philemon"; "The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche"; "The Werewolf"; "Eight Tales

from Gesta Romanorum"; "The Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox"; "The Goose-Girl at the Well"; "Clever Alice";

"Lohengrin"; "The Master-Thief"; "Boots who had an Eating-Match with the Troll"; "How the Sea became Salt"; "The Fate of

the Children of Lir"; "How Finn MacCool Obtained the Knowledge of Future Events"; "Finn MacCool and the Giant";

"O'Donaghue's Pigs"; "Davy Hanlan"; "Some Nonsense"; "The Twelve Dancing Princesses"; "Cinderella; or, The Little Glass

Wilson's Introduction to Silver Magic makes wonderful reading - particularly in respect of her lovely summary of what is

To accompany Wilson's compilation, Violet Brunton prepared a generous suite of colour and monotone illustrations - the

major colour and monotone illustrations alone number 55, with many more additional illustrations to introduce various

When presented on Greeting Cards, these images are prepared as tipped-in plates - in hommage to the hand-crafted

approach typical of prestige illustrated publications produced in the early decades of the 20th Century. Each card is

hand-finished and the images are presented on Ivory card stock (in the case of the colour illustrations) or White card

stock (in the case of the monotone illustrations) with an accompanying envelope. The rear of each card carries

information about Violet Brunton, this wonderful suite and the profiled illustration - we have left the interior of the

Should you wish to order a Reproduction Print of one or more of these images, we have provided some options below.

Each of these large format prints is also accompanied by information about Violet Brunton, this suite and the profiled

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secured through PayPal. Multiple purchases will be consolidated by that feature and shipping and handling costs to any

destination in the world are accommodated by our flat-rate fee of US$20 for every US$200 worth of purchases.

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The Miraculous Pitcher

Old Philemon and his wife

Simmerwater: A Yorkshire Philemon

Two venerable trees appeared

Simmerwater: A Yorkshire Philemon

They could see the roofs and chimneys

The Most Pleasant and Delectable

Tale of the Marriage of

Cupid and Psyche

Cupid wounded in the Palace of Venus

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The Most Pleasant and Delectable

Tale of the Marriage of

Cupid and Psyche

Psyche fleeing from the presence of Venus

The Werewolf

He turned into a wolf

Eight Tales from Gesta Romanorum

The cow with the golden horns

Eight Tales from Gesta Romanorum

When they were old enough she took

them into the town

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The Pleasant History of

Raynard the Fox

They take leave of the King

The Pleasant History of

Raynard the Fox

The fox did not go

The Goose-Girl at the Well

The old woman lived on a lonely

heath with her geese

Clever Alice

She wept for grief at the ill-luck

which might befall her

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Lohengrin

The Coming of Lohengrin

The Master-Thief

He dressed himself up like a bird

The Master-Thief

He hung himself up to a tree

Boots Who Had an Eating Match

With The Troll

If you cut this wood down

I will kill you

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Boots Who Had an Eating Match

With The Troll

The Eating Match

How the Sea became Salt

Frodi worked his giant maidens

terribly hard

The Fate of the Children of Lir

The four swans spread their wings

and rose

The Fate of the Children of Lir

Eva was changed into a Demon

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The Fate of the Children of Lir

None may kill a swan in Erin

The Fate of the Children of Lir

The Tower was in ruins

The Fate of the Children of Lir

'Tis the Christian Bell

How Finn MacCool Obtained the

Knowledge of Future Events

The giant fishing

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Finn MacCool and the Giant

The giant flees from the house

O'Donaghue's Pigs

The leg came off in his hand

O'Donaghue's Pigs

All the pigs turned into rushes

O'Donaghue's Pigs

The leg ran off by itself

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Davy Hanlan

Davy and the dwarf fly on the timber

Some Nonsense

Old Morm fishing with the jawbone

of his eldest son

Some Nonsense

The dove draws New Zealand

up out of the sea

Some Nonsense

I saddled my sow with a sieveful

of buttermilk

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Some Nonsense

It was a woman, too proud to

live on this Earth

Some Nonsense

If you kill a beetle it is sure to rain

Some Nonsense

Johnny Reed sees nine cats

Some Nonsense

Always poke a hole through

your eggshell

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Some Nonsense

Sleep on the onions on the eve

of St Thomas, and you will

dream of true love

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

The soldier met an old woman

in the woods

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

The youngest Princess was afraid

and looked back

Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper

The Stepmother

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Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper

The two step-sisters dressed for the ball

The Yellow Dwarf

The Kings became mad

The Yellow Dwarf

The Princess

The Yellow Dwarf

The terrible lions came over the hill

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Beauty and the Beast

The Beast

Beauty and the Beast

The Fairy was old and of

a haughty disposition

Beauty and the Beast

The King still brooded over

his afflictions

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Last year, if you read Green Magic, you will remember that I discussed the matter of fairies. This year I propose to write

Everybody knows that there are giants, though in these days they never attain to more than about nine feet high, and are

only to be seen at Shows and Circuses. But once upon a time it is said that giants were by no means mild creatures, that

they grew to prodigious size, and had often as many as nine heads. There were giants who reached up to the sky, and

giants who covered several acres when they lay down on the ground, and there were giants quite moderately small who

That kind of giant, I fear, was very common. You remember the ogre in Puss in Boots who had a fancy for boiled baby?

In ancient days, long before the Flood, creatures called the Cyclops, with one eye in the middle of their foreheads, are

supposed to have built enormous cities; and at certain places in Ireland and in Italy there are walls called Cyclopean walls,

built up by nobody known whom, but made of such immense stones that tradition says they were reared by these giants.

In the far north of Europe another race of giants dwelt. They lived in Jötenheim. The chief of them was called Skyrmir,

and he had a kettle a mile deep, a cat that no one could life from the ground, and an old charwoman who could

It is not only Europeans who have stories of giant and giant races. The Esquimaux have many a tale of these enormous

creatures. There was one who used to play ball with boulders, who in the end was changed to a rock by a Medicine-man.

The Esquimaux say that now only his nose and eyes are visible, but that once he wore a red belt which the wind has

And do not forget the story of David and Goliath, who, though not so big as some of the giants of fairy tales, was larger

The dwarfs, on the other hand, were the smallest men in the world, and far more numerous than giants, and there are a

great number of them still to be seen. There are whole races of dwarfs in the heart of Africa, where it seems they have

"Higher in the country, even in the edge and skirts of the mountains, the pygmies are

reported to be. They are called so because they are but a cubit or three spans high,

that is to say, three times nine inches ... And these pretty people Homer has also

reported to be much troubled and annoyed by cranes. It is said that in the spring they

set out in battle array, mounted upon the backs of rams and goats, armed with bows

and arrows, and march down to the sea where they wreck the eggs and kill the young

cranelings, which they destroy without pity ... As to their houses and cottages, they

are made of clay or mud, fowls' feathers and birds' eggshells. Howbeit Aristotle writes

In ancient times the pigmies and the cranes were always supposed to be enemies, and several books were written on this

It is said that once the pigmies found Hercules asleep and prepared to attack him, but he, waking up, laughed at the little

Dwarfs and pigmies are always supposed to have been very mischievous, and to have spent their time in sly tricks. For

instance, it is told of one that he ran after a sower and as the grains of wheat fell into the furrows he changed them into

stones. There were a great number of dwarfs who lived in the mountains and worked for gold, and in particular these

dwarfs haunted the mountains of Germany and Scandinavia. Many and many are the stories about them.

In England there was a very famous dwarf. He was called Billy Blind and lived in houses, generally in the back of the open

fire, or inglenook. If the people in the house kept on good terms with him he behaved himself and even made things go

more easily within doors, but if he got into a temper for any slight reason, he would cause kettles to upset and break pots

Besides these fairy or legendary dwarfs, there were real dwarfs, often exceedingly clever in a way, sly, malicious and vain,

and in olden days, right back into far-off times, kings and noblemen often had pet dwarfs in their households whom they

dressed up in ridiculous costumes and whom they spoiled and pampered like lapdogs. In particular the kings and grandees

of Spain had a very great fondness for these little folk, and even used to give their small children dwarfs as attendants. I

dare say that many a tale that is now a fairy tale had its origin in the pranks of some of these creatures.

Not only were there dwarfs in Africa and Europe, but everywhere all over the world. The Esquimaux say that the dwarfs

are very numerous, and so mall that their bows and arrows trail along the ground behind them. They find them friendly

people. But for my part, though I should have known, had I lived in fairy-tale times, that giants were always to be avoided,

I should not have trusted the dwarfs or pigmies either, for they seem very easily to have taken offence by reason of their

inordinate vanity (I wonder why little people are so often very vain), and if they were not downright wicked, were ready

Now I will leave dwarfs and giants and say a few words about the stories in this year's book. This time I have taken most

of the stories from Europe, and have begun with a tale of ancient Greece, "The Miraculous Pitcher," which is one of the

most beautiful tales that has even been told, and in Hawthorne's version I think it is especially charming. Then you will

find two Roman stories. "The Marriage of Cupid and Psyche" is really an old Greek tale, but here it is so much embroidered

upon by the Romans that in this version they have really made it their own. "The Werewolf" is an early version of a very

"Gesta Romanorum," which come next, are not by any means all Roman stories, but tale supposed to have been told by

the monks to each other of an evening some six or seven hundred years ago. Each of them was followed by a very lengthy

After "Gesta Romanorum" I have included a very famous tale, "The Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox," which, though

long, I have not cut down, because not only is it a fairy tale, but is a commentary upon the kind of life that kings and

None of the other stories in this book, except "The Children of Lir," needs any comment from me. "The Children of Lir,"

an Irish tale, is perhaps the oldest in the book. How far it goes, or when it was first told, nobody knows, perhaps in the

days of the Cyclops who built the great walls of Inishmor. Ah, yes, there is one very queer tale in the book which needs

a word. Where it comes from I do not know, but I found it in a book of English Comments. It may have been told to a

convict at Botany Bay. "Old Morm" was certainly a frightful creature. I think of all the giants I ever heard of, perhaps he

was the worst. The only match for him in wickedness is the "Yellow Dwarf," who I think is the vilest dwarf in all fairy