[Illustration: Janet casts the Flaming Sword into the Well] MORE ENGLISH FAIRY TALES Collected and Edited by JOSEPH JACOBS Editor of "Folk-Lore" Illustrated by JOHN D. BATTEN G.P. Putnam's Sons New York and London _YOU KNOW HOW TO GET INTO THIS BOOK_ _Knock at the Knocker on the Door, Pull the Bell at the side._ _Then, if you are_ very _quiet, you will hear a teeny tiny voice say through the grating_ "Take down the Key." _This you will find at the back: you cannot mistake it, for it has J. J. in the wards. Put the Key in the Keyhole, which it fits exactly, unlock the door, and_ _WALK IN_ Fourteenth Impression To MY SON SYDNEY ÆTAT. XIII Preface This volume will come, I fancy, as a surprise both to my brother folk-lorists and to the public in general. It might naturally have been thought that my former volume (_English Fairy Tales_) had almost exhausted the scanty remains of the traditional folk-tales of England. Yet I shall be much disappointed if the present collection is not found to surpass the former in interest and vivacity, while for the most part it goes over hitherto untrodden ground, the majority of the tales in this book have either never appeared before, or have never been brought between the same boards. In putting these tales together, I have acted on the same principles as in the preceding volume, which has already, I am happy to say, established itself as a kind of English Grimm. I have taken English tales wherever I could find them, one from the United States, some from the Lowland Scotch, and a few have been adapted from ballads, while I have left a couple in their original metrical form. I have rewritten most of them, and in doing so have adopted the traditional English style of folk-telling, with its "Wells" and "Lawkamercy" and archaic touches, which are known nowadays as vulgarisms. From former experience, I find that each of these principles has met with some dissent from critics who have written from the high and lofty standpoint of folk-lore, or from the lowlier vantage of "mere literature." I take this occasion to soften their ire, or perhaps give them further cause for reviling.