The first adjective of our title also needs a similar extension of its

meaning. I have acted on Molière's principle, and have taken what was

good wherever I could find it. Thus, a couple of these stories have

been found among descendants of English immigrants in America; a

couple of others I tell as I heard them myself in my youth in

Australia. One of the best was taken down from the mouth of an English

Gipsy. I have also included some stories that have only been found in

Lowland Scotch. I have felt justified in doing this, as of the twenty-

one folk-tales contained in Chambers' "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," no

less than sixteen are also to be found in an English form. With the

Folk-tale as with the Ballad, Lowland Scotch may be regarded as simply

a dialect of English, and it is a mere chance whether a tale is extant

in one or other, or both.