FAIRY TALES, THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING

With Some Account of Dwellers in Fairyland

BY

JOHN THACKRAY BUNCE







INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

The substance of this volume was delivered as a course of
Christmas Holiday Lectures, in 1877, at the Birmingham and
Midland Institute, of which the author was then the senior
Vice-president. It was found that both the subject and the
matter interested young people; and it was therefore thought
that, revised and extended, the Lectures might not prove
unacceptable in the form of a Book. The volume does not pretend
to scientific method, or to complete treatment of the subject.
Its aim is a very modest one: to furnish an inducement rather
than a formal introduction to the study of Folk Lore; a study
which, when once begun, the reader will pursue, with unflagging
interest, in such works as the various writings of Mr. Max-Muller;
the "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," by Mr. Cox; Mr. Ralston's
"Russian Folk Tales;" Mr. Kelly's "Curiosities of Indo-European