The intelligent reader need hardly be reminded that an insight into the
peculiar notions respecting the beauty and power of music current among
different nations may be of valuable assistance in the study of national
music, inasmuch as it tends to throw light upon questions which appear
obscure and inexplicable.
The following popular stories, like those which have previously been
given in this work, are told exactly as they are heard from the mouth of
the people. It is necessary that this should be mentioned by way of
introduction to the stories, because the degree of interest which they
may possess depends almost entirely upon the faithfulness with which
they are recorded. For the same reason it must be stated that, although
additions have been carefully avoided, it is otherwise with omissions,
since it appeared desirable to abridge several of the stories by
excluding passages which do not touch upon the subject of music. Should
the reader find among the stories an old acquaintance with a somewhat
different face than is familiar to him, he will, it is hoped, bear in
mind that, just as there are varieties of a popular tune to be found in
different districts of a country, so there are also different readings
of a popular tale. Even the degree of education attained by the
narrator, his personal character, and his peculiar views, will tend in
some measure to modify the features of a story, although nothing
extraneous may have been admitted into the incidents recorded.