8 English Fairy Tales Folk-lore. It is, perhaps, not necessary to inform readers who are not fellow-students that the study of Folk-tales has pre- tensions to be a science. It has its special terminology, and its own methods of investigation, by which it is hoped, one of these days, to gain fuller knowledge of the workings of the popular mind as well as traces of archaic modes of thought and custom. I hope on some future occasion to treat the subject of the English Folk-tale on a larger scale and with all the necessary paraphernalia of prolegomena and excursus. I shall then, of course, reproduce my originals with literal ac- curacy, and have therefore felt the more at liberty on the present occasion to make the necessary deviations from this in order to make the tales readable for children. Finally, I have to thank those by whose kindness in waiv- ing their rights to some of these stories, I have been enabled to compile this book. My friends Mr. E. Clodd, Mr. F. Hindes Groome, and Mr. Andrew Lang, have thus yielded up to me some of the most attractive stories in the following pages. The Councils of the English and of the American Folk-lore Societies, and Messrs. Longmans, have also been equally generous. Nor can I close these remarks without a word of thanks and praise to the artistic skill with which my friend, Mr. J. D. Batten, has made the romance and humour of these stories live again in the brilliant designs with which he has adorned these pages. It should be added that the dainty headpieces to “Henny Penny” and “Mr. Fox” are due to my old friend, Mr. Henry Ryland. JOSEPH JACOBS.