“She waved her right hand and swans were swimming in the water.” Illustration by Noel L. Nisbet, published in Russian Fairy Tales from the Russian of Polevoi (1915), Frederick A. Stokes Company.

Born in London in 1854, Robert Nisbet Bain was a British historian and linguist for the British Museum. Historians tell us that Bain was able to read and work with over 20 languages. His proficiency in languages led to him translating several books including the Norwegian classic, Weird Tales from Northern Seas, translated from the Danish by Jonah Lie.

His work with fairy tales includes folklore from the Ukraine, with a collection known as Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales. Bain also worked with Russian fairy tales and Turkish fairy tales. He also contributed to the Encyclopedia Britannica, writing biographies for a number of esteemed individuals, in particular, Bain is known for his exhaustive biography on another fairy tale author, Hans Christian Andersen. Bain passed away in 1909.