e eighty-seven tales (representing some hundred and twenty
variants) in my two volumes must represent the English folk-tale as far
as my diligence has been able to preserve it at this end of the
nineteenth century. There is every indication that they form but a
scanty survival of the whole _corpus_ of such tales which must have
existed in this country. Of the seventy European story-radicles which I
have enumerated in the Folk-Lore Society's _Handbook_, pp. 117-35, only
forty are represented in our collection: I have little doubt that the
majority of the remaining thirty or so also existed in these isles, and
especially in England. If I had reckoned in the tales current in the
English pale of Ireland, as well as those in Lowland Scots, there would
have been even less missing. The result of my investigations confirms me
in my impression that the scope of the English folk-tale should include
all those current among the folk in English, no matter where spoken, in
Ireland, the Lowlands, New England, or Australia. Wherever there is
community of language, tales can spread, and it is more likely that
tales should be preserved in those parts where English is spoken with
most of dialect. Just as the Anglo-Irish Pale preserves more of the
pronunciation of Shakespeare's time, so it is probable that Anglo-Irish
stories preserve best those current in Shakespeare's time in English. On
the other hand, it is possible that some, nay many, of the Anglo-Irish
stories have been imported from the Celtic districts, and are positively
folk-translations from the Gaelic. Further research is required to
determine which is English and which Celtic among Anglo-Irish
folk-tales. Meanwhile my collection must stand for the nucleus of the
English folk-tale, and we can at any rate judge of its general spirit
and tendencies from the eighty-seven tales now before the reader.

Of these, thirty-eight are _maerchen_ proper, _i.e._, tales with definite
plot and evolution; ten are sagas or legends locating romantic stories
in definite localities; no less than nineteen are drolls or comic
anecdotes; four are cumulative stories: six beast tales; while ten are
merely ingenious nonsense tales put together in such a form as to amuse
children. The preponderance of the comic element is marked, and it is
clear that humour is a characteristic of the English _folk_. The legends
are not of a very romantic kind, and the _maerchen_ are often humorous in
character. So that a