The legend of Perseus, Volume 3 (of 3)

A STUDY OF TRADITION IN STORY CUSTOM AND BELIEF: BY
Edwin Sidney Hartland F.S.A.
VOL. III. ANDROMEDA. MEDUSA
Published by David Nutt in the Strand, London 1896
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty
TO DAVID BRYNMÔR JONES, Q.C., M.P.
If any worth be found within these pages, If any skill, however poor, have traced Man’s thoughts and purposes down the long ages Where thought is dim and purpose half-effaced— To you the opportunity be reckon’d, To you the worth. You flung the portals wide Which guard enchanted palaces, and beckon’d To new adventures life had else denied— Enchanted palaces, where gods forgotten Dream through an afternoon of endless years; Adventures follow’d, far from fields erst foughten, ’Neath wilder heav’ns, aflame with mightier spheres. Yours be the spoils, then, from that realm of glamour; At least some gracious memories they will bring, When husht the forum, husht is party clamour, And you can listen to their whispering.
This volume contains, in addition to the final instalment of the inquiry sketched at the beginning of the first volume, a Supplementary List of Works referred to in volumes ii. and iii., and the Dedication and General Index for the whole.
Since the publication of the second volume local inquiries have satisfied me that the account of the ceremony at Market Drayton (or rather at Wollerton, near that town), mentioned on p. 292 of the volume in question, is inaccurate. The wine and biscuits were handed to the bearers, but not across the coffin; and the minister merely reprobated in general terms the custom of drinking at funerals.
Corrigenda of a minor character are, in volume i. p. 57, note 1, for 217 read 178, and p. 61, last line but one, for fisherman read merchant ; in volume ii. p. 147, note, after letter xxviii. insert to Daines Barrington , and p. 271, note 4, for 68 read 57.
I cannot lay down the pen without reiterating my very inadequate thanks to Mr. Rouse and Mr. Alfred Nutt for the unstinted and invaluable aid I have received in various ways from them: aid which, beginning with the opening chapter, has been continued to the latest pages of this effort to solve the problem of the Legend of Perseus.