In a small book like the present, there will necessarily be many points which deserve some fuller explanation than was possible, while here and there some points will seem to be unduly magnified. The chapter on St. Michael’s Mount might, at first sight, seem to add little to the main subject, but in this case it was not so much the hope of gain as the fear of loss which had to be considered. Should the reader meet with phrases and expressions which appear to him inconsistent with a serious treatment of the subject the writer can only crave his indulgence and assure him that they were not altogether unprovoked. Chapter III was in substance contributed to the _Truro Diocesan Magazine_; Chapter IV was read at a conference of the Kirrier Rural Deanery; Chapters V and VI were printed concurrently in the _Revue Celtique_ and the _Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall_. For permission to reprint them their author tenders his thanks to those journals. Besides the _Manuel d’Archéologie_ there are two other works to which he is much indebted, Dom Gougaud’s _Chrétientés Celtiques_ and Miss Clay’s _Hermits and Anchorites of England_. No better introduction to Celtic Christianity could be desired than Dom Gougaud’s book. Miss Clay has treated her subject with a particularity which is as rare as it is valuable, and although her book furnished little material for the present work, it was of great value in supplying the cartography of an unfamiliar region. To Professor J. Loth and to Mr. H. Jenner, F.S.A., his obligations are of a more personal character and therefore more difficult to express. To both of them, in all matters which concern Celtic language and literature, he stands in the relation of pupil to master. As such he acknowledges gratefully their friendly and patient guidance and ever ready help. It should be needless to add that in so doing he has no wish to shelter himself behind great names. For all blundering and backsliding he and he alone is responsible, inasmuch as throughout the perilous adventure he has cheerfully bestridden his own beast. ----- Footnote 1: R. A. Knox, _Some Loose Stones_, p. 89. Footnote 2: A friend of mine performed the surprising feat of evolving an entire system—god, religion, worshippers and all—out of much less than four legs and a tail. His only material consisted of a word, half-obsolete, of uncertain derivation and meaning. The jaw-bone in the hands of Samson was as nothing compared with the magic of this word in the mind of the valiant expositor of prehistoric religions. While reading the paper in which he proclaimed his discovery to a learned society, one could not fail to note the profound impression which it made upon the hearers or to admire the transparent sincerity of the reader.