to me to be to a certain extent allegorical, albeit such an
interpretation may be unreasonable. At least it is a fable
thoroughly characteristic of the negro; and it needs no
scientific investigation to show why he selects as his hero the
weakest and most harmless of all animals, and brings him out
victorious in contests with the bear, the wolf, and the fox. It
is not virtue that triumphs, but helplessness; it is not malice,
but mischievousness. It would be presumptuous in me to offer an
opinion as to the origin of these curious myth-stories; but, if
ethnologists should discover that they did not originate with the
African, the proof to that effect should be accompanied with a
good deal of persuasive eloquence.

Curiously enough, I have found few negroes who will acknowledge
to a stranger that they know anything of these legends; and yet
to relate one of the stories is the surest road to their
confidence and esteem. In this way, and in this way only, I have
been enabled to collect and verify the folklore included in this
volume. There is an anecdote about the Irishman and the rabbit
which a number of negroes have told to me with great unction, and
which is both funny and characteristic, though I will not
undertake to say that it has its origin with the blacks. One
day an Irishman who had heard people talking about "mares' nests"
was going along the big road--it is always the big road in
contradistinction to neighborhood paths and by-paths, called in
the vernacular "nigh-cuts"--when he came to a pumpkin--patch. The
Irishman had never seen any of this fruit before, and he at once
concluded that he had discovered a veritable mare's nest. Making
the most of his opportunity, he gathered one of the pumpkins in
his arms and went on his way. A pumpkin is an exceedingly awkward