This volume - one issued a little belatedly for the year 2002 - has followed the format of 'Australian Folklore' Number 16, in that (1) its contents and themes are clustered more than in the past, and we have taken some note of tragic events both in Australia and worldwide occurring in later 2002 - and so of the new 'folklore of terror' that has come with the millennium; and(2) that we have also included again some materials first presented at/ offered to the National Biennial Conference held in 2000. It is also the case, with this volume, that the folkloric work currently being done in Australia has a much wider range than might have appeared possible a decade ago. In this country there is also now a much wider recognition of the role that the folklores of the southwest Pacific region can and do play in the Australian cultural continuum, and how we are at certain levels international and,perforce, global. Thus the two letters to the editor are concerned with matters that, at first sight, might seem somewhat peripheral.