FOREWORD

Dear people,—­Whoever you are and wherever you may be when you take up this book—­I beg of you not to feel disturbed because I have let Fancy and a faery or two slip in between the covers.  You will find them quite harmless and friendly—­and very eager to become acquainted.

Furthermore, please do not search about for Saint Margaret’s; it does not exist.  I shamelessly confess to the building of it myself, using my right of authorship to bring a stone from this place, and a cornice from that, to cap the foundation I discovered long ago—­when I was a child.  In a like manner have I furnished its board of trustees.  Do not misjudge them; remember that when one is so careless as to let Fancy and faeries into a book she is forced to let the stepmothers be unkind and the giants cruel.

I should like to remind those who may be forgetting that Tir-na-n’Og is the land of eternal youth and joyousness—­the Celtic “Land of Heart’s Desire.”  It is a country which belongs to us all by right of natural heritage; but we turned our backs to it and started journeying from it almost the instant we stepped out of our cradles.

As for the primrose ring—­reach across it to Bridget and let her give you back again the heart of a child which you may have lost somewhere along the road of Growing-Old-and-Wise.

    R. S.

THE PRIMROSE RING

I

CONCERNING FANCY AND SAINT MARGARET’S

Would it ever have happened at all if Trustee Day had not fallen on the 30th of April—­which is May Eve, as everybody knows?

This is something you must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the story-teller, sitting in the shadow of the market-place, passing on the tale that comes to my ears.  But I can remind you that May Eve is one of the most bewitched and bewitching times of the whole year—­reason enough to account for any number of strange happenings; and I can point out to your notice that Margaret MacLean, in charge of Ward C at Saint Margaret’s, found the flower-seller at the corner of the street that morning with his basket full of primroses.  Now primroses are “gentle flowers,” as everybody ought to know—­which means that the faeries have been using them for thousands of years to work magic; and Margaret MacLean bought the full of her hands that morning.

And this brings us back to Trustee Day at Saint Margaret’s—­which fell on the 30th of April—­and to the beginning of the story.