vi PREFACE

point at which a prudent man, mindful that only specialists can
btj truly scholarly, would have desisted from the enterprise.^ It
would have stopped, but for the nagging of the little questions
themselves, which would not be at peace without an answer.

At this point the author-jz«z-reader, who is a personage at
least as distinct as Launcelot Gobbo's conscience, and so able to
enter into a dialogue with the writer, came in with his fallacious
assurances.

The task is not herculean. The ballad is, so far as you are con-
cerned, a definitely European and medieval phenomenon; and it is
possible to acquire a reading knowledge of the languages, especially
as bn!!ad vocabulary and style are intrinsically simple. You do not need
to read all ballads. So long as you handle really representative collec-
tions, it will be safe to let hundreds stand for thousands. Keep your
questions perfectly simple; look for the answers with your own eyes,
not forgetting to consult all available authorities. You should not be
seriously in error, if you describe what you have actually seen for your-
self; and the truth, if not precisely what you make it, must be of that
kind/

It is to be feared that the author-gmz-reader was optimistically
misinformed about the difficulty of the undertaking. He did not
know how many languages there are in Europe, and that the least
accessible are often the most abundant in ballads. It did not occur
to him that the songs, in addition to being old in speech, were
often maddeningly dialectal, so that the dictionaries were always
liable to fail his needs. It was not possible to envisage such a case
as the Erlangen manuscript of Yugoslav songs which, in addition
to being Hercegovinian (for whatever dialectal difficulties that
might imply), have been copied out by a German with a copious
supply of German mispronunciations; nor could one imagine how
hard ft is to read Greek ballads, in the vulgar language, by the aid
of dictionaries all anxious to demonstrate the likeness of modern
to ancient Greek. Let it be admitted that the rule of trusting only
one's own eyes has been broken in the case of Finnish and
Esthoniaa ballads, lest this inquiry should be spun out to infinity.
For Hungarian poetry it has been necessary to rely too heavily on
report, since the material that came to hand was generally not of
the right type. Into Gaelic balladry, if the term be rightly applied
the writer has gone only far enough to be aware how slippery that
ground may be. There are still gaps, but nothing, I hope, which