INTRODUCTION
THE work which Pandit Natesa Sastri has been engaged in for so many years, and of which this volume is only one small exemplar, deserves every welcome and support, as much from his own countrymen as from foreign dwellers in the land. The folklore of a country is never so well known even by the folk of the country itself, that popular literature concerning it is not to be heartily welcomed. Moreover there is always a young generation growing up which is waiting to be instructed in it by the easiest and widest possible means.
The simpler tenets of religion and the more popular tales and legends are learned from the lips of parents and teachers: but there is much that can only be learned from books. Further, in these days of hurry and stress, by which even India is being more or less affected, the old leisurely, yet possibly more thorough, methods of oral tradition and teaching are no longer possible, and we must trust more and more to written and printed records. Pandit Natesa Sastri is doing most excellent work in collecting, arranging and recording in concise and easily assimilable form some of the more
