This volume will come, I fancy, as a surprise both to my brother
folk-lorists and to the public in general. It might naturally have been
thought that my former volume (_English Fairy Tales_) had almost
exhausted the scanty remains of the traditional folk-tales of England.
Yet I shall be much disappointed if the present collection is not found
to surpass the former in interest and vivacity, while for the most part
it goes over hitherto untrodden ground, the majority of the tales in
this book have either never appeared before, or have never been brought
between the same boards.

In putting these tales together, I have acted on the same principles as
in the preceding volume, which has already, I am happy to say,
established itself as a kind of English Grimm. I have taken English
tales wherever I could find them, one from the United States, some from
the Lowland Scotch, and a few have been adapted from ballads, while I
have left a couple in their original metrical form. I have rewritten
most of them, and in doing so have adopted the traditional English style
of folk-telling, with its "Wells" and "Lawkamercy" and archaic touches,
which are known nowadays as vulgarisms. From former experience, I find
that each of these principles has met with some dissent from critics who
have written from the high and lofty standpoint of folk-lore, or from
the lowlier vantage of "mere literature." I take this occasion to soften
their ire, or perhaps give them further cause for reviling.

My folk-lore friends look on with sadness while they view me laying
profane hands on the sacred text of my originals. I have actually at
times introduced or deleted whole incidents, have given another turn to
a tale, or finished off one that was incomplete, while I have had no