Combining fairy tale and etiological myth, this story of the Victorian art critic Ruskin has familiar motifs found in fairy tales (the number three, bad siblings vs. good siblings, a quest, goodness is rewarded and selfishness is punished), and it apparently worked for contemporary audience, because the story sold out three editions and became an instant classic.

I didn't find the story particularly interesting. Under all the flowery prose the plot is quite simple, and reminds me of fairy tales of lesser quality I've been reading lately. I don't see the kind of charm and magic that would make this memorable, even though there's nothing atrociously bad either. To be fair, Ruskin wrote this for his future wife and never intended this to be published, but maybe his friends wanted his work to be known, who knows.