Chapter II: Preface

The issue of this second volume of _Popular Ballads of the Olden Time_ has been delayed chiefly by the care given to the texts, in most instances the whole requiring to be copied by hand.

I consider myself fortunate to be enabled, by the kind service of my friend Mr. A. Francis Steuart, to print for the first time in a collection of ballads the version of the _Grey Selchie of Shool Skerry_ given in the Appendix. It is a feather in the cap of any ballad-editor after Professor Child to discover a ballad that escaped his eye.

My thanks are also due to the Rev. Professor W. W. Skeat for assistance generously given in connection with the ballad of _Judas_; and, as before, to Mr. A. H. Bullen.

F. S.

BALLADS IN THE SECOND SERIES

The ballads in the present volume have been classified roughly so as to fall under the heads (i) Ballads of Superstition and of the Supernatural, including Dirges (pp. 1-122); (ii) Ballads of Sacred Origin (pp. 123-154); (iii) Ballads of Riddle and Repartee (pp. 155-181); and (iv) a few ballads, otherwise almost unclassifiable, collected under the title of 'Fyttes of Mirth,' or Merry Ballads (pp. 182 to end).