The Terrible Head

Andrew Lang was a Scots poet, novelist, and literary critic. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. Lang gave many of the tales their first appearance in English. 

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books — are a series of twelve collections of fairy tales. Each volume is distinguished by its own color. In all, 437 tales from a broad range of cultures and countries are presented. Andrew Lang included THE TERRIBLE HEAD in The Blue Fairy Book.

The Blue Fairy Book is probably the volume with the most traditional tales.

The Terrible Head begins thus: “ONCE upon a time there was a king whose only child was a girl. Now the King had been very anxious to have a son, or at least a grandson, to come after him, but he was told by a prophet whom he consulted that his own daughter’s son should kill him.”