Foreword

These tales are still characteristic of the tales told or sung in the farmhouses, at weddings and christenings in the Breton-speaking regions of Brittany, in spite of the disastrous modern influence of moving pictures and popular songs.

Some of the stories in this book are unpublished hitherto in their present form--the subjects of them being taken from the ancient folk songs of Barzaz-Breize, or from oral tradition. Others are translated from the old collection of legends gathered in the Breton language, from the Breton people, by the distinguished writer and son of Brittany, Emile Souvestre, and published in French under the title of Le Foyer Breton.

I wish to express special gratitude to M. l’Abbé François Cadic, who has allowed me the use of his remarkable series of fairy and folk tales Contes et Légendes de Bretagne and Nouveaux Contes et Légendes, which together with their historical commentary form what Anatole Le Braz justly calls Le Livre d’Or du Morbihan.

ELSIE MASSON

Pontivy, Morbihan

France

October, 1929.