It has been a puzzling question to decide just where to draw the line in separating foreign from what we may call current American folk-lore. The traditions and superstitions that a mother as a child or girl heard in a foreign land, she tells her children born here, and the lore becomes, as it were, naturalized, though sometimes but little modified from the form in which it was current where the mother originally heard it. Whether to include any folk-lore collected from oral narrators or from correspondents, even if it had been very recently brought hither, was the question. At length it has been decided to print only items taken down from the narration of persons born in America, though frequent parallels and numberless variants have been obtained from persons now resident here, though reared in other countries. It would be a most interesting task to collate the material embraced in the present collection with the few published lists of American superstitions, customs, and beliefs, and with the many dialect and other stories, the books of travel, local histories, and similar sources of information in regard to our own folk-lore. Equally valuable would be the endeavor to trace the genesis of the most important of the superstitions here set down. But the limits of the present publication make any such attempt wholly out of the question, and the brief notes which are appended refer to but a few of the matters which invite comment and discussion. Some few repetitions have been almost unavoidable, since not infrequently a superstition might consistently be classified under more than one head; besides, it is not unusual to find that varied significations are attributed to the same act, accident, or coincidence. When localities are wanting it is sometimes because the narrator could not tell where he had become familiar with the items communicated; again, a chance correspondent failed to note the locality. In putting on paper these popular beliefs and notions, the abbreviated, often rather elliptical, vernacular in which they are passed about from mouth to mouth has to a great extent been followed. It is impossible here to name the legion of individuals from whom the subject-matter of the various chapters of this volume has been gathered. But thanks are especially due to the following persons, who have contributed largely to the contents of the book:--