INTRODUCTION xxi

of man to idealise, to mingle fiction with his fact, to express his love of the heroic and his belief in the supernatural. Most curious of all among these legends are many fairy tales in which the prince, fairy, and ogre of the conven- tional nursery tale walk hand in hand with be- ings of the forest. These stories have plainly come to the Indian in recent times, but in their forest garb they are wonderfully interesting, and Show vividly the genius of the primitive thought.

Wonderful as these products of savage mind may seem to one who for the first time discov- ers that primitive life is not all physical, but is filled with poetry and religion, it seems stranger still to realize that the rich and va- ried fancies of the Micmacs are but examples of many such fruits of the mind of man, which have either wholly or in part disappeared and have now passed beyond recall. It is sad to believe that this is so, not only because the loss of anything rare and beautiful that the im- agination of man has produced must ever be a cause of regret, but also because there seems- to be in these old tales something that comes very near to the heart of the child of our own later day—something warm and intimate and natural which he feels and claims as his own; the love of which, we may believe, shows the