'The Kalevala' is an account of the Finnish national poem; of all poems
that in which the popular, as opposed to the artistic, spirit is
strongest. The Kalevala is thus a link between Marchen and Volkslieder
on one side, and epic poetry on the other.

'The Divining Rod' is a study of a European and civilised superstition,
which is singular in its comparative lack of copious savage analogues.

'Hottentot Mythology' is a criticism of the philological method, applied
to savage myth.

'Fetichism and the Infinite,' is a review of Mr. Max Muller's theory that
a sense of the Infinite is the germ of religion, and that Fetichism is
secondary, and a corruption. This essay also contains a defence of the
_evidence_ on which the anthropological method relies.

The remaining essays are studies of the 'History of the Family,' and of
'Savage Art.'

The essay on 'Savage Art' is reprinted, by the kind permission of Messrs.
Cassell & Co., from two numbers (April and May, 1882) of the Magazine of
Art. I have to thank the editors and publishers of the Contemporary
Review, the Cornhill Magazine, and Fraser's Magazine, for leave to
republish 'The Early History of the Family,' 'The Divining Rod,' and
'Star Myths,' and 'The Kalevala.' A few sentences in 'The Bull-Roarer,'
and 'Hottentot Mythology,' appeared in essays in the Saturday Review, and
some lines of 'The Method of Folklore' in the Guardian. To the editors
of those journals also I owe thanks for their courteous permission to
make this use of my old articles.