, LTD.
PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1893
INTRODUCTION.
The following treatise is to some extent a re-statement and partly an
amplification of a theory I have elsewhere advanced.[1] But as that
theory, although it has been advocated by several writers, especially
during the past half-century, is not familiar to everybody, some remarks
of an explanatory nature are necessary. And if this explanation assumes
a narrative form, not without a tinge of autobiography, it is because
this seems the most convenient way of stating the case.
It is now a dozen years or thereabouts since I first read the "Popular
Tales of the West Highlands," by Mr. J.F. Campbell, otherwise known by
his courtesy-title of "Campbell of Islay." Mr. Campbell was, as many
people know, a Highland gentleman of good family, who devoted much of
his time to collecting and studying the oral traditions of his own
district and of many lands. His equipment as a student of West Highland
folklore was unique. He had the necessary knowledge of Gaelic, the
hereditary connection with the district which made him at home with the
poorest peasant, and the sympathetic nature which proved a master-key in
opening the storehouse of inherited belief.
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