THE tales in this collection have been gathered in various parts of Canada. They have been selected from a larger collection of folk-tales and folk-songs made by the writer for more academic and scientific purposes. They are not the product of the writer's imagination; they are the common possession of the "folk." Many of them are still reverently believed by the Canadian Indians, and all are still told with seriousness around camp fires in forests and on plains, upon the sea and by cottage hearths. The dress in which they now appear may be new, but the skeleton of each story has been left unchanged.
Canada is a country with a romantic past. The atmosphere in which our ancestors lived in the early days of exploration and colonization, if not one of enchantment, was at least one of mystery. The traditions and tales of our country's past are rapidly disappearing in its practical present, and the poetry of its former times is rarely heard above the hum of its modern life. Its "old unhappy far-off things and battles long ago" are fading memories, for comparatively little has been done to save its old tales from oblivion. That the children of the land may know something of the traditions of the mysterious past in which their forefathers dwelt and laboured is the writer's only excuse for the publication of this volume.
The writer's deepest thanks are here expressed to the nameless Indians and "habitants," the fishermen and sailors, "the spinners and the knitters in the sun," from whose lips he heard these stories.
It is perhaps but fair to explain that the proofs were corrected by the writer in the intervals between other duties on Vimy Ridge, France, and that to this fact and the consequent haste any minor errors may in part at least be attributed.
