friends and my Saturday Reviewer differ with
me on the important problem of the origin of folk-tales. They think that
a tale probably originated where it was found. They therefore attribute
more importance than I to the exact form in which it is found and
restrict it to the locality of birth. I consider the probability to lie
in an origin elsewhere: I think it more likely than not that any tale
found in a place was rather brought there than born there. I have
discussed this matter elsewhere[1] with all the solemnity its
importance deserves, and cannot attempt further to defend my position
here. But even the reader innocent of folk-lore can see that, holding
these views, I do not attribute much anthropological value to tales
whose origin is probably foreign, and am certainly not likely to make a
hard-and-fast division between tales of the North Countrie and those
told across the Border.

As to how English folk-tales should be told authorities also differ. I
am inclined to follow the tradition of my old nurse, who was not bred at
Girton and who scorned at times the rules of Lindley Murray and the
diction of smart society. I have been recommended to adopt a diction not
too remote from that of the Authorised Version. Well, quite apart from
memories of my old nurse, we have a certain number of tales actually
taken down from the mouths of the people, and these are by no means in
Authorised form; they even trench on the "vulgar"--_i.e._, the archaic.
Now there is just a touch of snobbery in objecting to these archaisms
and calling them "vulgar." These tales have been told, if not from time
immemorial, at least for several generations, in a special form which
includes dialect and "vulgar" words. Why desert that form for one which
the children cannot so easily follow with "thous" and "werts" and all
the artificialities of pseudo-Elizabethan? Children are not likely to
say "darter" for "daughter," or to ejaculate "Lawkamercyme" because they
come across these forms in their folk-tales. They recognise the unusual
forms while enjoying the fun of them. I have accordingly retained the
archaisms and the old-world formulae which go so well with the folk-tale.

In compiling the present collection I have drawn on the store of 140
tales with which I originally started; some of the best of these I
reserved for this when making up the former one. That had necessarily to
contain the old favourites _Jack the Giant Killer, Dick Whittington_,
a