Project Gutenberg's Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes, by Various

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Title: Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes
Spanish and Portuguese Folklore

Author: Charles Sellers and Others

Editor: Charles Sellers

Release Date: March 3, 2010 [EBook #31481]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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tales
from the lands of
nuts and grapes

(SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE FOLKLORE)

BY
CHARLES SELLERS.

1888.

LONDON:

_Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E.C._

_Simpkin, Marshall & Co.; Hamilton, Adams & Co._

PREFACE.

I firmly believe that the following tales have never seen the light of
publicity. They are the folklore of Spain and Portugal.

Since the day when Hernando del Castillo, in 1511, published some of the
romances of Spanish chivalry collected from the people, various works
have appeared at different times, adding to the already rich store from
that inexhaustible mine of song and story.

But, unfortunately for those who appreciate originality in a people, it
was discovered that Boccaccio had been most unceremoniously plagiarized,
and, what was still worse, that his defects had not been avoided.

The "Decameron" has, in fact, been the foundation of the majority of the
romances attributed to the natives of the Peninsula when, as has too
often been the case, they have in their songs of chivalry overstepped
the limits imposed by decorum.

But this does not argue that the Spaniards and Portuguese have no poetry
and no folklore of their own, but rather that the latter have been
ignored by the compilers of such literature, in order to satisfy the
cravings of the unfortun