Ford, a generally forgotten figure in whom there has recently been a certain renascence of interest, wrote several books of fairy tales and this is a long one with many of the charming conceits of the genre. Queen Eldrida, a heroine who talks with a definite, candid asperity, belied by her rather droopy visage in the illustrations, is given the secret of a flower which will enable her to fly by a bat. Her experiences to follow are a somewhat self-perpetuating series of encounters, away from the ill-humored king who wants to marry her, with an old woman and a blind ploughman, and back to her kingdom where she removes the Regent, Lord Blackjowl, abdicates less ceremoniously than the Duke of Windsor, and returns to marry her true, true love, the ploughman. Ford was considered the last pre-Raphaelite which may well explain the tenor of some of the illustrations by Grambs Miller; the detail is lovely, but oh, that Rossetti-ish princes. Adults may like it better than children.