The Fair Folk and Little Orphan Mary: A Tale about Gnomes by Maria Konopnicka

A classic children’s tale about Gnomes, appealing equally, if not more so, to the adult child. Written in rich, lyrical prose, frequently shifting into the peasant dialect and interspersed with sundry verses and songs, the tale is replete with mytho-folkloric motifs, legends, superstitions, historical and biblical references, magical depictions of natural phenomena, the sunsets, the twilights, the dawns; the changing seasons, the shadows, the colors, the sounds and silences, Poland’s diverse landscape, her fields, forests and mountains, along with her flora and fauna, and realistic descriptions of late 19th-century Polish rural life. Not least among The Fair Folk’s charms is the author’s whimsical sense of humor—a humor that often rises to a level of high hilarity.