Chapter I: Foreword

DEAR PEOPLE,--Whoever you are and wherever you may be when you take up this book--I beg of you not to feel disturbed because I have let Fancy and a faery or two slip in between the covers. You will find them quite harmless and friendly--and very eager to become acquainted.

Furthermore, please do not search about for Saint Margaret's; it does not exist. I shamelessly confess to the building of it myself, using my right of authorship to bring a stone from this place, and a cornice from that, to cap the foundation I discovered long ago--when I was a child. In a like manner have I furnished its board of trustees. Do not misjudge them; remember that when one is so careless as to let Fancy and faeries into a book she is forced to let the stepmothers be unkind and the giants cruel.

I should like to remind those who may be forgetting that Tir-na-n'Og is the land of eternal youth and joyousness--the Celtic "Land of Heart's Desire." It is a country which belongs to us all by right of natural heritage; but we turned our backs to it and started journeying from it almost the instant we stepped out of our cradles.

As for the primrose ring--reach across it to Bridget and let her give you back again the heart of a child which you may have lost somewhere along the road of Growing-Old-and-Wise.

R. S.

THE PRIMROSE RING