closely prefigured what Belgium is suffering from now, and in his romance Thyl Ulenspiegel is a personification of the soul of Flanders. From Coster’s richly coloured and intensely Flemish extravaganza, which seems alternately inspired by Rubens and by Rabelais, we have extracted an episode of great picturesqueness and high national inspiration, which has been translated for the present volume. We think that it will be welcome among the better-known and more authentic fairy-tales, since it also is a fairy-tale, a dream of the noble patriotism of the Belgian nation as seen reflected in the Owl’s Looking-Glass. “Est-ce qu’on enterre Ulenspiegel, l’esprit, ou Nele, le coeur, de la mere Flandre?” To this question, now a far more poignant one than it was in the days of Charles de Coster, the seven other Allies reply with unanimity: “By the favour of God, no!”
August 1916
[Since we went to press, we have received the good news that Rumania has joined the eight Allies. In another edition, we hope to give a specimen of her folk-lore, and (who knows?) of that of some other friendly Power.]
