THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF Dwellers in Fairyland BY JOHN THACKRAY BUNCE London MACMILLAN AND CO. 1878 The Rights of Translation and Reproduction are Reserved INTRODUCTORY NOTE. THE substance of this volume was delivered as a course of Christmas Holiday Lectures, in 1877, at the Birmingham and Midland Institute, of which the author was then the senior Vice-president. It was found that both the subject and the matter interested young people; and it was therefore thought that, revised and extended, the Lectures might not prove unacceptable in the form of a Book. The volume does not pretend to scientific method, or to complete treatment of the subject. Its aim is a very modest one: to furnish an inducement rather than a formal introduction to the study of Folk Lore; a study which, when once begun, the reader will pursue, with unflagging interest, in such works as the various |