Roman Legends: A collection of the fables and folk-lore of Rome

ROMAN LEGENDS
A COLLECTION OF THE FABLES AND FOLK-LORE OF ROME
BY R. H. BUSK AUTHOR OF ‘SAGAS FROM THE FAR EAST’ &c. ‘HOUSEHOLD STORIES FROM THE LAND OF HOFER’ &c.
BOSTON Copyright and Published by ESTES AND LAURIAT 1877


I had heard it so often positively asserted that modern Italy had no popular mythology, and no contribution of special versions to offer to the world’s store of Traditionary Tales, that, while possessing every opportunity, I was many years without venturing to set myself against the prevailing opinion so far as to attempt putting it to the proof.
I have not given her Legends of Loreto in the text because, being tolerably familiar, they were among those which could best be sacrificed to the exigencies of space. I gathered on that day, however, one version of S. Giovanni Bocca d’oro, with two stories of Padre Filippo: and her subsequent testimony concerning the crucifix of Scirollo came in usefully (pp. 193, 195) in illustration of the Legend of Pietro Bailliardo; but, what was precious to me above all, I gained the proof and earnest that there was certainly a vein of legendary lore underlying the classic soil of Rome, and that it only remained to find the means of working it.
No repository of Roman Folklore was to be found ready-formed. ‘Who among us,’ writes Cesare Cantù in his preface to his ‘Novelle Lombarde,’ ‘knows anything about these matters? If they were the things of Scotland or Touraine we should all have read them long ago in the pages of Scott or Balzac. But here among us there are neither writers who care to describe nor readers who take any interest in learning the ways of our own country. People like to seem above giving their attention to such homely matters, and only care for what they must look at through a telescope.’
I was thus thrown back on my own powers of collecting, and found the process, however fascinating where successful, much more uphill work than it had promised to be at the outset. Legends, it is true, there was less difficulty in obtaining. There might be some sense and some moral in them, and I found people were not ashamed of knowing them; but it long remained impossible to convince persons who had even betrayed to me indications that they possessed what I wanted, to own fully to a knowledge of bonâ fide Fairy Tales, or to believe that I could be serious in wishing to listen to such childish nonsense.