Part 10 (1/2)

[163] _History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings_, i. 14.

[164] Innes' _Critical Essay_, 45, 51, 56, 240.

[165] O'Curry's _Manners and Customs of Ancient Irish_, i. p. vi. Dr.

Whitley Stokes has criticised O'Curry's translations as bad, ”not from ignorance, but to a desire to conceal a fact militating against theories of early Irish civilisation.”--_Revue Celtique_, iii. 90-101.

[166] Turner, _Hist. of Anglo-Saxons_, i. 64-74; Palgrave, _Eng. Com._, i. 467-8.

[167] Giles' _History of Anc. Britons_, i. 231, referring to parallel customs among the Chinese.

[168] Elton, _Origins of English History_, 82.

[169] Rhys, _Celtic Britain_, 55.

[170] _Celtic Heathendom_, 320, note.

[171] I have dealt with this in my _Ethnology in Folklore_, 36-40.

[172] Skene, _Celtic Scotland_, i. 59, 84.

[173] Pearson, _Hist. of England during the Early and Middle Ages_, i.

15, 21, 35.

[174] Ramsay, _Foundations of England_, i. 9, 11, 30.

[175] Lang, _Hist. of Scotland_, i. 3-5.

[176] Joyce, _Social Hist. of Ireland_, i. 19.

[177] In addition to Mr. Lang and Dr. Joyce, who are folklorists as well as historians, and who as we have seen do deal with these records scientifically, the folklorist goes out of his way to reject these records. Thus Mr. Squire says that ”the imputation” which Caesar makes as to polyandrous customs ”cannot be said to have been proved,”

_Mythology of the British Islands_, 30.

[178] _Village Communities_, 17.

[179] _Principles of Sociology_, i. 714.

[180] _Arch. Cambrensis_, 6th ser. v. 3.

[181] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, xx. 259.

CHAPTER II

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The materials of folklore consist of traditional tales (so called) and traditional customs and superst.i.tions (so called), the feature of both groups being that at the time of first being recorded and reduced to writing they existed only by the force of tradition. There is no fixed time for the record. It is sometimes quite early, as, for instance, the examples which come to us from historians; it is generally quite late, namely, the great ma.s.s of examples which, during the past century or so, have been collected directly from the lips or observances of the people, sometimes by the curious traveller or antiquary, lately by the professed folklorist.

The consideration of the relations.h.i.+p of history and folklore has cleared the ground for definitions and method. Before the material of which folklore consists can be considered by the light of method, we must get rid of definitions which are often applied to folklore in its attributed sense. Folk-tales are not fiction or art, were not invented for amus.e.m.e.nt, are not myth in the sense of being imaginative only.[182] Customs and superst.i.tions are not the result of ignorance and stupidity. These attributes are true only if folk-tales, customs, and superst.i.tions are compared with the literary productions and with the science and the culture of advanced civilisation; and this comparison is exactly that which should never be undertaken, though unfortunately it is that which is most generally adopted. The folk-tale may be lent on occasion to the artist--to Mr. Lang, to Mr.

Jacobs, and their many copyists; and these artists may rejoice at the wonderful results of the unconscious art that resides in these products of tradition, but the folk-tale must not be wholly surrendered. It does not belong to them. It does not belong to art at all, but to science. That it is artistic in form is an addition to its characteristics, but has nothing whatever to do with its fundamental features. Similarly with legend. It may be lent to Malory, to Tennyson, to Longfellow, to the literary bards of the romance period, for the purpose of weaving together their story of the wonderful; but it must not be surrendered to the romancist, and, above all things, the romances must never be allowed to enter the domain of folklore.

Romances may be stripped of their legends so that the source of legendary material may be fully utilised, but the romances themselves belong to literature, and must remain within their own portals. And so with customs. They may be pleasing and reveal some of the beauties of the older joyousness of life which has pa.s.sed away, it is to be regretted, from modern civilisation; they may be revived in May-day celebrations, in pageants, in providing our schools with games which tell of the romance of living. But they do not belong to the lover of the beautiful or to the revivalists. Equally with the folk-tale they belong to science. And so also with superst.i.tions. The Psychical Research Society, the spiritualists, the professional successors of the mediaeval witch and wizard, may turn their attention to traditional superst.i.tions; but the folklorist refuses to hand them over, and claims them for science.