It is a good thing to make resolves, but a better thing, once having made them, to keep them. On two previous occasions the compiler of the present volume has stated his resolve in prefaces to issue nono more books of the kind, but has gone ahead and prepared more. Probably the motive that brought into existence the first volume can be urged in extenuation for the eleventh, namely, the desire to preserve the folk-lore of the Pennsylvania Mountains.

The contents of the present volume, like its predecessors, were gathered orally from old people and others, and written down as closely as possible to the verbal accounts. In order to escape ill feeling, as in the case with the earlier volumes, some names of persons and places, and dates have been changed. This has been done with the greatest reluctance, and only where absolutely necessary. The characters are real persons, and most of them appear under their rightful names. Many of the legends or incidents run counter to the accepted course of history, but tradition is preserved for what it is worth, and the reader can draw his own conclusions. While some of these tales end unhappily, the proportion is not greater than in life as we know it, and the general ascendency of right over wrong shines through the gloomiest passages. Life could not exist, or the world go on, unless the majority of events ended fortuitously; it is that happy preponderance which makes “hope spring eternal,” and is so often rewarded by a realization of the heart’s desire.

The various phases of the supernatural in the ensuing pages depicts probably a more normal condition of our relationship with the unseen world than the crude and clumsy mediumship found in the big cities, and may present a rational explanation of life “behind the dark curtain.”

There is certainly a spiritual life, and a purely spiritual God, and all the events of the soul are regulated by divine laws, which have only too frequently been confused with the physical life so subject to chance and reversion back to chaos.

The origins of Pennsylvania folk-lore seem to the writer like a happy blending of Indian and European elements which would have gradually, had backwoods conditions continued, developed into a definitely Pennsylvanian mythology. The fact that the writer had so many more legends in form of notes, which otherwise would have been mislaid and come to nothing, prompted him to break his resolve and prepare the present volume. And, for good or ill, he has many more, dealing with other parts of the State. What shall be their fate? Are they worthy of perpetuation as folk-lore? Apart from the general idea of preserving legendary matter for future generations, there is the added reason that the heroic lines of some of the characters appealed to him, and, to save them from the oblivion of the “forgotten millions,” their careers have been herein recorded.

Probably one-half of the stories were told to the compiler by one lady–Mrs. W. J. Phillips, of Clinton County--who spent some of her girlhood days, many years ago, on the Indian Reservations in Pennsylvania and southwestern New York.

Professor J. S. Illick, Chief of the Bureau of Research of the Pennsylvania Department of Forestry, is due thanks for securing many of the illustrations. Four of the chapters–Nos. IX, XV, XXI, XXII–are reprinted from the compiler’s historical brochure, “Penn’s Grandest Cavern,” and the first chapter, “Tulliallan,” was published in the “Sunbury Daily”; otherwise none of the chapters of this book have hitherto appeared in print.

Persons interested in more intimate details concerning the origins and characters of the various tales will be cheerfully accommodated “for private circulation only.” Like James Macpherson of “Ossian,” it can be said “the sources of information are open to all.”

The compiler hopes that through this book a more general interest in the Pennsylvania folk-lore can be created; its predecessors have missed achieving this, but there is always that hope springing afresh to “Godspeed” the newest volume. No pretense at style of literary workmanship is claimed, and the stories should be read, not as romances or short stories, but as a by-product of history–the folk-lore, the heart of the Pennsylvania mountain people. With this constantly borne in mind, a better understanding and appreciation of the meanings of the book may be arrived at.at.

The kindly reception accorded to the previous volumes, and also to “North Pennsylvania Minstrelsy” by the press and by a small circle of interested readers, if equalled by the present volume will satisfy the compiler, if his ambitions for a wider field of usefulness are not to be realized.

To those of press and public who have read and commented on the earlier volumes go the compiler’s gratitude, and to them he commends this book, the tales of which have had their origins mostly along the main chain of the Allegheny Mountains and on the western watershed. Sincere thanks are due to Miss Mary E. Morrow, whose intelligence and patience in transcribing the manuscripts of this and the majority of the earlier volumes of the series has had much to do with whatever recognition they may have achieved, and a pleasant memory to the author, as well.

P. S.–Thanks are also due to Mrs. E. Horace Quinn, late of Bucknell University, for her kindness in revising the proofs.