end of Europe. Tales that travelled to
them could go no further and must therefore be the last links in the
chain.

For all these reasons, then, Celtic folk-tales are of high scientific
interest to the folk-lorist, while they yield to none in imaginative
and literary qualities. In any other country of Europe some national
means of recording them would have long ago been adopted. M. Luzel,
_e.g._, was commissioned by the French Minister of Public Instruction
to collect and report on the Breton folk-tales. England, here as
elsewhere without any organised means of scientific research in the
historical and philological sciences, has to depend on the enthusiasm
of a few private individuals for work of national importance. Every
Celt of these islands or in the Gaeldom beyond the sea, and every
Celt-lover among the English-speaking nations, should regard it as one
of the duties of the race to put its traditions on record in the few
years that now remain before they will cease for ever to be living in
the hearts and memories of the humbler members of the race.

In the following Notes I have done as in my _English Fairy Tales_, and
given first, the _sources_ whence I drew the tales, then _parallels_ at
length for the British Isles, with bibliographical references for
parallels abroad, and finally, _remarks_ where the tales seemed to need
them. In these I have not wearied or worried the reader with
conventional tall talk about the Celtic genius and its manifestations
in the folk-tale; on that topic one can only repeat Matthew Arnold when
at his best, in his _Celtic Literature_. Nor have I attempted to deal
with the more general aspects of the study of the Celtic folk-tale. For
these I must refer to Mr. Nutt's series of papers in _The Celtic
Magazine_, vol. xii., or, still better, to the masterly introductions
he is contributing to the series of _Waifs and Strays of Celtic
Tradition_, and to Dr. Hyde's _Beside the Fireside_. In my remarks I
have mainly confined myself to discussing the origin and diffusion of
the various tales, so far as anything definite could be learnt or
conjectured on that subject.

Before proceeding to the Notes, I may "put in," as the lawyers say, a
few summaries of the results reached in them. Of the twenty-six tales,
twelve (i., ii., v., viii., ix., x., xi., xv., xvi., xvii., xix.,
xxiv.) have Gaelic originals; three (vii., xiii., xxv.) are from the
Welsh; one (xxii.) from the now extinct Cornish; one