Many of the stories in this volume were told by an old man who said
he had more and better learning nor the scholars. "The like of them,"
he declared, "do be filled with conceit out of books, and the most of
it only nonsense; 'tis myself has the real old knowledge was handed
down from the ancient times." The spread of education and cheap
literature robbed him of audience: the boys read of adventure by land
and sea, the girls interested themselves in the fate of heroes with
marble-white complexion and coal-black moustache. But it happened
that the old man took a contract to break stones for lime, and a
child with an insatiable desire for information came to watch him at
work. "I promise you will walk the world, like a Queen of ancient days,
renowned for learning and wit," he assured her, delighted to find a
listener at last. The child was only seven years old, and could not
remember all she heard, so most of his lore died with him.
"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.