Summary:

From the Preliminary: 'In some instances we can trace scraps of folklore back to whence they came. In the legends of several of the Irish saints we have them represented as floating over the sea on leaves. The idea is so odd and so preposterous--as there are in Ireland no leaves of any size that could be serviceable--that we are constrained to look back and see whether this be not an adaptation of a much earlier myth. Now, in an old Flemish poem on Brandaein, or St Brendan the Voyager, he meets on the ocean with a Thumbling seated on a leaf, floating, in one hand a pan, in the other a style.' Note: In the chapter 'Sacrifice', there is some text missing at the end.