Note 9 — PREFACE.

With the exception of some of the Legends, Local Traditions, and Ciarpe, there are few, either printed in this collection or among those I still hold in MS., the leading episodes of which (if not the entire story) are not to be found in the collections of other countries; but certain categories common in other countries are wanting in the Roman. One could not in making the collection but be struck with the almost complete absence of stories of heroism and chivalry. There are some, indeed, in which courageous deeds occur; but there is none of the high-souled mettle which comes out so strong in Hungarian, Gaelic, and Spanish tradition, in many of the Teutonic and Breton, and some Norse and Russian tales. Several, we shall find, are identical stories, with the grand and fierce element left out. I have never come across a single story of knightly prowess in any shape. I have in MS. one or two dragon stories, but no knights figure even in these. At the same time, tales of horror seem equally to have failed to fascinate the popular imagination, and we can trace again the toning down process in many instances. I have in MS. several versions of the rather ghastly story of the boy who went out to discover Fear, but the Roman mind does not often indulge in such scenes as it presents. Similarly, horrid monsters are rare. ‘Orco’ himself is not painted so terrible as in other countries. Giants and dwarfs, again, being somewhat monstrous creations, are not frequent. The stories about the Satiri were only told me spontaneously by one narrator; one other owned to having heard of such beings on being questioned, but there is no general popular conception corresponding to the German ideas of wild men. I have never met anyone who believed in the present existence of any supernatural being of this class,9 and rarely with any who imagined such had ever existed. ‘The stories always say, “there was a fairy who did so and so:” but were there ever fairies? Perhaps there were, perhaps there weren’t,’ soliloquised an old woman one day at the end of a tale; that was the strongest expression of opinion in their favour that came in my way. Another said once, ‘If there ever were such beings there would be now; but there certainly are not any now, so I don’t believe there ever were any.’10