She was off and away to the lone plain of Carterhaugh (p. 8)

STORIES FROM

THE BALLADS

TOLD TO THE CHILDREN BY

MARY MACGREGOR

WITH PICTURES BY

KATHARINE CAMERON

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK

NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.

TO DORIS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Listen, children, for you will wish to hear where I found thetales which I have told you in this little book.

It is long, oh! so long ago, that they were sung up hill and downdale by wandering singers who soon became known all over thecountry as minstrels, or ofttimes, because they would carry withthem a harp, as harpers.

In court, in cottage, by princes and by humble folk, everywhere,by every one the minstrels were greeted with delight.

To such sweet music did they sing the songs or ballads which theymade or perchance had heard, to such sweet music, that those wholistened could forget nor tale nor tune.

In those far-off days of minstrelsy the country was alive withfairies. Over the mountains, through the glens, by babblingstreams and across silent moors, the patter of tiny feet might beheard, feet which had strayed from Elfinland.

It was of these little folk and of their visits to the homes ofmortals that the minstrels sang. Sterner songs too were theirs,songs of war and bloodshed, when clan fought with clan and liveswere lost and brave deeds were done. Of all indeed that made lifeglad or sad, of these the minstrels sang.

From town to village, from court to inn they wandered, singingthe old songs, adding verses to them here, dropping lines fromthem there, singing betimes a strain unheard before, until atlength the day came when the songs were written down.

It was in the old books that thus came to be written that I firstfound these tales, and when you have read them perhaps you willwish to go yourself to the same old books, to find many anothersong of love and hate, of joy and sorrow.

MARY MACGREGOR.

LIST OF STORIES