The tale of how a father with his magic wand and a boy with his music triumph over the giant Abiyoyo is based on a South African lullaby and folk story.

    

    S. Merwin); the Middle High German epic poem The Niebelungenlied (translated by critic and academic Helen Mustard); and the Old French poem The Song of Roland (translated by William Alfred, professor of English at Harvard). The translators are preeminent authorities, and they provide critical evaluations and discussions of the technical and historical aspects of the works. Other than The Cid, these renderings are unique to this Modern Library edition.

    The new foreword by her son. Karl Kroeber, provides context about the author's methods and describes his own personal connection to the stories themselves.

    Mrs Swire has spent most of her life in the North and her book portrays the life and spirit of the land as it was before the enormous changes wrought in the last forty years. It deals chiefly with the counties of Inverness, Ross and Cromarty and Sutherland, though Nairn and Forres are included. To make it of more interest to visitors, all the stories and facts have been strung on the roads, as on a necklace, each "bead", whether loch, castle or town, having its own stories and legends. The whole has been given a sufficient background of history and modern fact to make it easily read and appreciated. In it will be found such diverse characters as Druids, early saints, giants good and bad, a tragic bride, gnomes who fled from the first train, a waterhorse who desired a chimney, heroes old and new, the Little People, birds and beasts and the green fairy dogs. Many of the stories have not before been published.