Cuentos popolares_),
_Popular Narrations_ (_Narraciones popolares_), _Tales of Various
Colors_, _Tales of the Dead and Living_, etc.[4]

Before examining in detail any of these collections it may be well to
learn the author's views of his task and definition of his subject. In
the introduction to the _Popular Tales_ he says, addressing his friend
Don Jose de Castro y Serrano: "The object of this preface is simply to
tell you why I have given the name of _Popular Tales_ to those contained
in this volume, what I understand by popular literature, and why I write
tales instead of writing novels or comedies or cookbooks. There are two
reasons why I have called these tales popular. First, because many of
them are told by the people; and, secondly, because in retelling them I
have used the simple and plain style of the people.... In my conception,
popular literature can be defined in this manner: That literature which
by its simplicity and clearness is within the reach of the intelligence
of the people.... However, in popular literature the simplicity of form
is not enough: it is necessary to reproduce Nature, because if not
reproduced there will be no truth in it; and if there is no truth in it
the people will not believe it; and if they do not believe it they will
not feel it. For my part, I take such pains in studying Nature, in order
that my pictures may be true, that I fear you will accuse me of
extravagance, and will laugh at me when you read the two examples I am
going to cite. On a very severe night in January I was writing in the
fourth story of the street Lope de Vega, No. 32, the tale which I named
_De Patas en el Infierno_ ('The Feet in Hell'), and when a detail
occurred which consisted in explaining the changes in the sound made by
water in filling a jar at a fountain, I found that I had never studied
these changes, and I did not have in the house at that moment water
enough to study them. The printers were going to send for the story
early in the morning, and it must be finished that night. Do you know
what I did to get out of my difficulty? At three o'clock in the morning,
facing the darkness, rain and wind, I went to the little fountain near
by with a jar under my cloak, and spent a quarter of an hour there
listening to the sound of the water as it fell into the jar. A short
time after I was preparing to write the rural tale called _Las Siembras
y las Cosechas_ ('Seed-time and Harvest'), and the description of a