Note 4 — Introduction.

We fear scientific men will be disappointed in this collection. Notwithstanding that we have been careful to collect from those who know the Basque only, or who certainly knew only Basque when they first learnt these tales, yet they are evidently much mixed with French and Spanish. Our translations are literal to baldness; the only liberty we have taken is in softening down the exceeding directness and grossness of some portions. Not one tale is in the least licentious—but the Basque language calls a spade a spade, and not an implement of husbandry.4 The Carlist war of the last four years has prevented our getting any legends from the Spanish Basque provinces, and has even to some extent hindered our work in the French Pays Basque, by providing an almost exclusive object of interest. In the more remote districts of the Pays Basque itself, which we have not been able to revisit since we commenced this collection, purer forms of some of these legends may be found, and others of which we have no example;5 but these which we give are really representative. Though collected mainly in the neighbourhood of St. Jean de Luz, we have tested them by enquiry of natives of all the provinces, and find that they are equally well known in La Soule and in Basse Navarre as in the Labourd. We never met with a Basque peasant who could not tell us what are the Tartaro, the Heren-Suge, Basa-Jaun, and the Lamiñak.