The Mystic Will

Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903) was an American humourist and folklorist. He worked in journalism, travelled extensively, and became interested in folklore and folk linguistics, publishing books and articles on American and European languages and folk traditions. By the end of his life he had worked in a wide variety of trades, achieved recognition as an author of the comedic Hans Breitmann Ballads, fought in two conflicts, and had written what was to become a primary source text for Neopaganism half a century later, Aradia; or, The Gospel of the Witches. He made a study of the Gypsies, on whom he wrote more than one book. Leland began to publish a number of books on ethnography, folklore and language. His fame during his lifetime rested chiefly on his comic Hans Breitmann Ballads (1871), written in a combination of broken English and German. His writings on Algonquian and gypsy culture were part of the contemporary interest in pagan and Aryan traditions. He also wrote The English Gipsies and Their Language (1873), The Gypsies (1882), The Algonquin Legends of New England (1884), Memoirs (1893) and The Breitmann Ballads.