Charles Godfrey Leland (August 15, 1824 – March 20, 1903) was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Leland 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 shortly after the turn of the century, Leland had worked in a wide variety of trades, achieved recognition as the author of the comic Hans Breitmann’s 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 was educated at Princeton University and in Europe. Fought as a captain on the barricades of the French Revolution in 1848 and in the American Civil war.

In 1848 Leland attended the Sorbonne, and was involved in the Revolutions of 1848 in France, fighting at constructed barricades against the King's soldiers as a captain in the revolution.

"Leland did not always temper his Civil War Poetlry with the comic overtones of Hans Breitmann. Violent imagery characterizes much of the verse from this poetry." Encyclopedeia of Poetry, Eric Haralson, John Hollander. Fitzroy, 1998