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Tattercoats

From More English Fairy Tales, collected by Joseph Jacobs

Tattercoats is an English folk-tale collected by Joseph Jacobs and first published in the late nineteenth century. It was told to folklorist Mrs. Balfour by a young girl named Sally Brown, who learned it from her mother in Lincolnshire. Unlike many fairy tales, this story has almost no magic—only the gooseherd's enchanted pipe at the very end. It is a tale about kindness, true love and seeing the worth in a person no matter what they wear. The story reminds young readers that what matters most is a kind heart, not fine clothes or riches. This text reflects its era.

Band

Purple · Pre-readers and first readersTypical starting range: ages 4–5

Length

short · about 347 words in 5 sections · 4 pictures

Source

More English Fairy Tales, Joseph Jacobs and John Dickson Batten

First published

see the About page in the reader

Regions

Canada · United States

Included formats

• · Web reader and PDF
• · EPUB for e-readers
• · Home-print sheet
• · Folded booklet
• · Binder edition (8.5 × 11)
• · Worksheet
• · Quick Check (6 questions) with answer key
• · Read-aloud script
• · Colouring page
• · Teacher’s Edition (members)

Readers are engineered from the original public-domain text with AI under HummingRead’s published canon and Content Philosophy, checked by automated audit and sampled by a person. Pictures are made with AI to HummingRead’s brief for each story. How a reader is made.

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