For material in the compilation of many of the legends embraced in this volume obligation is acknowledged to H. R. H. Liliuokalani; General John Owen Dominis; His Excellency Walter M. Gibson; Professor W. D. Alexander; Mrs. E. Beckley, Government Librarian; Mr. W. James Smith, Secretary of the National Board of Education; and especially to Hon. Abram Fornander, the learned author of “An Account of the Polynesian Race, its Origin and Migrations.”

The legends, in the order of their publication, beginning with the first and ending with “The Destruction of the Temples,” may be regarded, so far as they refer to the prominent political events with which they are associated, as in a measure historic. Those following have been selected as the most striking and characteristic of what remains of the fabulous folk-lore of the Hawaiian group.