INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The substance of this volume was delivered as a course of Christmas Holiday Lectures, in 1877, at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, of which the author was then the senior Vice-president. It was found that both the subject and the matter interested young people; and it was therefore thought that, revised and extended, the Lectures might not prove unacceptable in the form of a Book. The volume does not pretend to scientific method, or to complete treatment of the subject. Its aim is a very modest one: to furnish an inducement rather than a formal introduction to the study of Folk Lore; a study which, when once begun, the reader will pursue, with unflagging interest, in such works as the various
