“The King’s Daughter of France,” “The Dark Oath,” and “Nallagh’s Child” were told by other friends.

The Folk Tale is essentially dramatic and loses much when it is written down; moreover it is often put into a form unsuited to the spirit of naïve philosophy from whence it springs. The peasant of ancient race is more akin to the aristocratic type than the bourgeois can ever be—and the story told from generation to generation bears greater resemblance to the work of a poet than to that of the popular novelist, who is the bourgeois of literature. Superstition in a race is merely the proof of imagination, the people lacking fairy lore must also lack intelligence and wit.

B. HUNT.

CONTENTS

PAGE
I.[The King’s Daughter ofFrance]1
II.[The Cow of a Widow ofBreffny]13
III.[Kate Ellen’s Wake]21
IV.[The Dark Oath]29
V.[Fairy Gold]37
VI.[M’Carthy of Connacht]45
VII.[Nallagh’s Child]65
VIII.[The Enchanted Hare]73
IX.[The Bridge of the Kist]81
X.[The Child and the Fiddle]89
XI.[The Cutting of the Tree]97
XII.[The Little Settlement]105
XIII.[The Tillage in the Fort]115
XIV.[The New Deck of Cards]121
XV.[The Lifting of a Child]127
XVI.[The Voice at the Door]135
XVII.[The Earl’s Son of theSea]143
XVIII.[The Girl and the Fairies]153
XIX.[Good-night, my BraveMichael]159
XX.[The Lad and the Old Lassie’sSong]165
XXI.[The Basket of Eggs]169
XXII.[The Broken Branch]175
XXIII.[Digging for Gold]179
XXIV.[Story of a Churn]183
XXV.[The Gankeynogue in the OakChest]187
XXVI.[The Maker of Brogues]193
[Glossary]197

I

THE KING’S DAUGHTER OF FRANCE