The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Primrose Ring, by Ruth Sawyer

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Title: The Primrose Ring

Author: Ruth Sawyer

Release Date: March 27, 2005 [eBook #15482]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRIMROSE RING***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE PRIMROSE RING

by

RUTH SAWYER

Illustrated

Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York & London

1915

To

The Little Mother
this book in memory of the
Primrose Ring
she wove for me once on a time

FOREWORD

DEAR PEOPLE,--Whoever you are and wherever you may be when you take up
this book--I beg of you not to feel disturbed because I have let Fancy
and a faery or two slip in between the covers. You will find them
quite harmless and friendly--and very eager to become acquainted.

Furthermore, please do not search about for Saint Margaret's; it does
not exist. I shamelessly confess to the building of it myself, using
my right of authorship to bring a stone from this place, and a cornice
from that, to cap the foundation I discovered long ago--when I was a
child. In a like manner have I furnished its board of trustees. Do
not misjudge them; remember that when one is so careless as to let
Fancy and faeries into a book she is forced to let the stepmothers be
unkind and the giants cruel.

I should like to remind those who may be forgetting that Tir-na-n'Og is
the land of eternal youth and joyousness--the Celtic "Land of Heart's
Desire." It is a country which belongs to us all by right of natural
heritage; but we turned our backs to it and started journeying from it
almost the instant we stepped out of our cradles.

As for the primrose ring--reach across it to Bridget and let her give
you back again the heart of a child which you may have lost somewhere
along the road of Growing-Old-and-Wise.

R. S.

THE PRIMROSE RING

I

CONCERNING FANCY AND SAINT MARGARET'S

Would it ever have happened at all if Trustee Day had not fallen on the
30th of April--which is May Eve, as everybody knows?

This is something you must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the
story-teller, sitti