When Queen Elizabeth began to write the “Fairy Tales of the Pelesch,” she wrote the following poem in her journal:-- “On every wave, in every flower A shining fairy tale I see; I gather them from stream and bower, And tell them as they’re told to me. From mossy banks and woodlands glancing, They come like visions golden bright; On every spray I watch them dancing, And hear their whispers soft and light. They come like sunbeams many-tinted, But with what radiance, glowing, fair, They’re on my memory imprinted I never can in words declare.” These “Fairy Tales” were published in 1883, entitled “From Carmen Sylva’s Kingdom,” and were given to the school children as a prize book in their Roumanian translation. In the introduction the authoress addresses the people of her Roumanian kingdom in her character of mother of her country, and says to her children-- “Where crags the ancient forest crown, Where mountain streams dance wild adown, And countless blossoms spread, And odours sweet are shed; There lies the land--all glad and green-- Where I am Queen! Where all that in old legends lies Is read enshrined in tender eyes Deep with the blue of truth, And bright with loving youth; There, soft as spring, that land is seen Where I rule, Queen. All the world over, in deep grove Wherever ring bird-songs of love, Where gathering mists veil all, And splashes the waterfall, ’Mid those waved boughs my ways have been, There I am Queen! From shooting leaf and budding flower, From each new beam of heavenly power, In growing and beholding, In being and enfolding, The realm grows--(Children! when was such wealth seen?) Where I am Queen!” --_Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold._ “Through the Centuries” is the name of the second volume of “From Carmen Sylva’s Kingdom” (1887). They are fairy tales and ballads told in prose, and taken from the Roumanian national poetry. “They are history, legends, ballads, and novels (but all true ones) together,” writes the Queen. “It begins with the fall of Decebal, and ends with the taking of Widdin.” Heroes and heroic deeds are here brought before us in disconnected tales. We read of the fall of the Datian Prince Decebal, of times when the Roman influence was also felt in Roumania, which still lives among the Roumanian people in songs and traditions. We gaze into the Middle Ages and hear of Stephen the Great, as well as the Legend of Manole, the architect of the Cathedral of Curtea de Arges, which is told with such marvellous simplicity, and others. We meet with figures of heroic women, such as the Mother of Stephen the Great, Decebal’s daughter, Andrada, Fausta, Neaga. The ballads also describe later episodes, which, being on elevating or touching subjects, have been taken up by the people.