history in this sense, we see from the story of David's court in 2 Sa. and the beginning of 1 Kings. There we have a graphic and circumstantial narrative of the struggles for the succession to the throne, free from bias or exaggeration, and told with a convincing realism which conveys the impression of first-hand information derived from the evidence of eye-witnesses. As a specimen of pure historical literature (as distinguished from mere annals or chronicles) there is nothing equal to it in antiquity, till we come down to the works of Herodotus and Thucydides in Greece.
Quite different from historical writing of this kind is the Volkssage,—the mass of popular narrative talk about the past, which exists in more or less profusion amongst all races in the world. Every nation, as it emerges into historical consciousness, finds itself in possession of a store of traditional material of this kind, either circulating among the common people, or woven by poets and singers into a picture of a legendary heroic age. Such legends, though they survive the dawn of authentic history, belong essentially to a pre-literary and uncritical stage of society, when the popular imagination works freely on dim reminiscences of the great events and personalities of the past, producing an amalgam in which tradition and phantasy are inseparably mingled. Ultimately they are themselves reduced to writing, and give rise to a species of literature which is frequently mistaken for history, but whose true character will usually disclose itself to a patient and sympathetic examination. While legend is not history, it has in some respects a value greater than history. For it reveals the soul of a people, its instinctive selection of the types of character which represent its moral aspirations, its conception of its own place and mission in the world; and also, to some indeterminate extent, the impact on its inner life of the momentous historic experiences in which it first woke up to the consciousness of a national existence and destiny.[1]
- ↑ Comp. Gordon, Early Traditions, 84: "As a real expression of the living spirit of the nation, a people's myths are the mirror of its religious and moral ideals, aspirations, and imaginations.
