Beliefs and Superstitions of the Pennsylvania Germans #248731

The aim of the present volume is two-fold. It is in tended primarily as a contribution not only to American Folklore but more especially as a chapter in the larger field of German American relations, the pioneer exponent of which is the present Professor of the Germanic Languages and Literatures in the University of Pennsylvania. Other considerations, secondly, have made it imperative that the general public should be interested in the book. It has therefore been deemed advisable to adopt a simpler phonetic notation in reproducing the vernacular than might other wise have been permissible. It should be emphasized that the contents of the present volume are to-be regarded as a serious attempt at putting into permanent form a phase of folk-life which will soon disappear into the background and thus be irretrievably lost. This book is therefore not intended as a source of supply for those whose aim in speaking and writing about the Pennsylvania Germans seems to be to exaggerate and misrepresent.