PREFACE

ALL Lions have tails: some—like the one here—remarkably long ones. Some Lionels I know have “Legends” instead. The Lionel for which these were made is a great devourer of them, and he also has an appetite for pictures to paint. This book of sketches, the offspring of the odd half hours of winter evenings, was originally intended strictly for home consumption. One thing, however, leads to another, just as the sketches did, following one by one as fancy led, till they filled the book, and this book falling under the eye of Messrs Cassell (through the voluntary offices of a sympathetic and enthusiastic friend) “Legends for Lionel” may become legends for legions of Lionels.

That both Lionels and others may get as much fun out of the book as did its own father—and Lionel’s—is the wish of both, at any rate

Walter Crane.

Aug: 1887

Jack Frost sends his Herald

without their leaves,

and just as the World is thinking of skating—

comes Thaw;

followed by Fog, in which Lionel begins to look out for Xmas.

He sees dim and cloudy outlines,

across a white expanse, dotted with sugar-plums,

which led him to a little house in a garden of Xmas-Trees.

The door was opened by a stately Turkey,

supported by attendant sausages

and followed by Plum pudding

Mince-pies,

and a regiment of Crackers

and a rain of Bon-bons,

also a Snap-dragon

S^t George after him.

but Lionel gets through them all at last, and is invited by Jack Horner

to a seat in the chimney corner,

and a share of the celebrated pie,

and when the pie was opened

it stood and flapped its wings!

A pretty dish to set before two hungry things

King Frost was in his Freezing House:

Nipping toes and noses!

Green Spring was in her sleeping car,

Tying up her posies

The spade was in the garden talking to the hose,

About a little London-black that settled on the rose.

But Lionel takes to another branch of the black business,

and, followed by his tinker’s dog, he trundles his workshop.

On the common he meets a pot and a kettle in hot dispute:

having mended their little difference with a bit of cracked looking glass,

further on he meets with some keen customers,

and a whole population of pots and pans,

besides sets of fire-irons waiting to be set on their legs.

Fire-dogs, too, left the chimney corner,

to follow the Tinker’s dog:

Good Luck flings her old horse shoe after him,

and so, getting hold of all the old iron of the village, the Tinker turns Magician, transmutes it into gold and retires from business.