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.
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