Elfin music: an anthology of English fairy poetry

Miscellaneous.

Epilogue.

INTRODUCTION.

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This volume appears, I trust at an opportune time, during the initial signs of a revival of that romantic or supernatural element which is the primary characteristic of primitive song-craft in every nation. This element is now welcomed by a select section of discriminating literary critics as the salvation of modern poetry.

Independent of this fact, there should be no need for an apology in presenting, for the first time to lovers of fantasy, an anthology of the fairy poetry that has beautified the lesser-known paths of English song with its gracious melody for six centuries. In this brief introduction, I propose to consider Elfin mythology in its connection with poetry, without attempting a strictly critical estimate of the literary value of the fairy flights that follow. Their poetic merit is, for the most part, sufficiently guaranteed by the names attached to them—Chaucer and Spenser in