I love Project Gutenberg! There are so many classics, so much useful stuff. I already have some Andrew Lang fairy tales(so far just the Blue Fairy Book), but on the Sur La Lune Fairytales site I found Joseph Jacobs, who collected English, Celtic and other folk tales in the nineteenth century and while you could read them on the web site, complete with notes, I opted to get at least one of the books on Gutenberg. I started with the English Fairy Tales book. Even the introduction is charming. He argues that while there aren't too many fairies in them, you aren't going to get children asking their nurse or grandmother for "another folk-tale/ nursery tale."

I have browsed through some of them, as well as the Celtic ones, which I've just looked at on Sur La Lune and found versions of Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, the Pied Piper, Cinderella, The Juniper Tree and Clever Else. I keep thinking,"hang on, I've read this somewhere!" And of course, I have. There are a lot of stories that just keep turning up over and over, in countries unconnected with each other. I have found a Native American version of Cinderella, among others, the one where the sisters only pretend to see the gorgeous spirit warrior and she is chosen because she can. I've read that one before, but found it again on the Sur La Lune site - a fabulous web site for anyone researching folk tales for writing.

There are evil stepmothers everywhere and heroes and heroines who break their promises to supernatural beings and live happily ever after. Serve them right for trusting humans!

It's all handy for the writing. There are some good stories to be played with out there!