Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/9

Rh them in a frame formed by the imaginary adventures of English sportsmen on the Fjeld or Fells in Norway. After a while he grew weary of the setting and framework, and when about a third of the volume had been thus framed, he resolved to let the Tales speak for themselves, and stand alone, as in the first series of "Popular Tales from the Norse." This framework has been omitted in the present edition.

With regard to the bearing of these Tales on the question of the diffusion of race and tradition, much might be said, but he has already traversed the same ground in the Introduction to the "Tales from the Norse." It will be enough here to mention that several of the Tales now published are variations, though very interesting ones, from some of those in the first series. Others are rather the harvest of popular experience than mythical tales; and on the whole, the character of this volume is more jocose and less poetical than that of its predecessor. In a word, they are, many of them, what the Germans would call "Schwänke."

Of this kind are the Tales called "The Charcoal-Burner," "Our Parish Clerk," and "The Parson and the Clerk." In "Goody 'Gainst-the-Stream," and "Silly Men and Cunning Wives," the reader skilled in popular fiction will find two tales of Indian origin, both of which are widespread in the folklore of the West, and make their appearance in the