PREFACE.

IN publishing this somewhat rambling and unsystematic series
of papers, in which I have endeavoured to touch briefly upon a
great many of the most important points in the study of
mythology, I think it right to observe that, in order to avoid
confusing the reader with intricate discussions, I have
sometimes cut the matter short, expressing myself with
dogmatic definiteness where a sceptical vagueness might
perhaps have seemed more becoming. In treating of popular
legends and superstitions, the paths of inquiry are circuitous
enough, and seldom can we reach a satisfactory conclusion
until we have travelled all the way around Robin Hood's barn
and back again. I am sure that the reader would not have
thanked me for obstructing these crooked lanes with the thorns
and brambles of philological and antiquarian discussion, to
such an extent as perhaps to make him despair of ever reaching
the high road. I have not attempted to review, otherwise than
incidentally, the works of Grimm, Muller, Kuhn, Breal, Dasent,
and Tylor; nor can I pretend to have added anything of
consequence, save now and then some bit of explanatory
comment, to the results obtained by the labour of these
scholars; but it has rather been my aim to present these
results in such a way as to awaken general interest in them.
And accordingly, in dealing with a subject which depends upon
philology almost as much as astronomy depends upon
mathematics, I have omitted philological considerations
wherever it has been possible to do so. Nevertheless, I
believe that nothing has been advanced as established which is
not now generally admitted by scholars, and that nothing has