Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/372

358 FOLK-LORE for the local accretions. In this way the history of a story, like the history of a word, was frequently found to be more interesting and more instructive than the history of a cam paign. Once this had been realized, the new field of folk-lore found many skilled labourers; and the quantity of material available for examination and classification rapidly increased. Each fresh comparison made it increasingly plain that in groundwork and plot the stories current among the Indo- European peoples were substantially identical. The reader of the fables of La Fontaine found nothing essentially and absolutely strange in the Pankatantra or Hitopadesa ; the Indian ayah was discovered to have unmistakably the same stock of stories as the German, Norwegian, or Celtic nurse. In a few cases, indeed, it could be shown that the wide dif fusion of some particular fable was attributable to migra tions which had taken place within the historic period; 1 and in other cases it could hardly be doubted that certain very remarkable coincidences were still mere coincidences and nothing more ; 2 but in a great majority of instances, it was plain that the notion of borrowing or copying having occurred was inadmissible, and that nothing could account for their constant similarity except the theory of a common origin. They were " primitive or organic legends, represent ing one common ancient stratum of language and thought reaching from India to Europe ; " the others were secondary or inorganic, consisting of " boulders of various strata carried along by natural and artificial means from one country to another." 3 The aboriginal Aryan legends may be arranged under one or other of two categories, the myth or the fable. That primitive fables actually exist, stories expressly invented for a moral or didactic purpose, seems a well-established fact. The fable of the King and the Bee, for example, crops up alike in India, in Greece, and in Norway, in forms that cannot be accounted for by direct oral or literary transmis sion ; 4 and it would seem that the story of the Master-Thief (<ipxs (j>r).r)Ttu>v) which is to be met with in the Hitopadesa, in Herodotus, in the Tales of the Alhanibra, and which is current in Norway and also in the Western Highlands of Scotland, must probably also be regarded as embodying at least a fable-germ. 5 The organic fables, however, are not so numerous as the organic myths, those stories, that is to say, which, whether based on mistaken metaphor or distorted history, are at least the product of the unconscious play of fancy. The same characters and the same incidents constantly recur under innumerable names and shapes. "The story of the heroes of Teutonic and Hindu folk-lore, the stories of Boots and Cinderella, of Logedas Rajah and Surya Bai, are the story also of Achilleus and Oidipous, of Perseus and Theseus, of Helen and Odysseus, of Baldur, and Rustem, and Sigurd. Everywhere tbere is the search for the bright maiden who has been stolen away, every where the long struggle to recover her. The war of Ilion has been fought out in every Aryan land " (Cox). What we are accustomed to associate with the name of William Tell is told of many archers under other names, in England 1 See Max Miiller s paper "On the Migration of Fables," in the Contemporary Review for 1870, republished, with additions, in Chips from a German Workshop, vol. iv. 2 The Hottentots, for example, have a version of the " vestigia nulla retrorsum" fable, and a number of traces of the stories of Renard the Fox. The Zulus also have tales resembling that of Jack the Giant- Killer. See Max Miiller, Chips, ii. 212 ; iv. 156. So with the large family of stories which turn on the idea of gods wandering on earth in the likeness of men. 3 Max Miiller, Cliips, ii. 245. 4 Max Miiller, Chips, ii. 232; iv. 153. Sir George W. Cox also finds that the legend of " The Carter, the Dog, and the Sparrow " would never have found its way into the nurseries of German peasants if written by Grimm himself in imitation of some other Aryan tale (Mythology of the Aryan Races, i. 124-129, 167). 5 Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Races, i. 124 scq. (William of Cloudsle), Germany, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Lapland ; 6 the same story of the young hero dying in the fulness of youth is told of Baldur and Isfendiyar, Sifrit, and Achilles. The stories vary widely under the influence of climate, religion, and civilization, and yet remain sub stantially the same. The sun-myth, when transferred from southern to northern latitudes, cannot but undergo some change of shape ; the dramatis personce are as various in each fable as the fauna and flora of the regions in which it is told. Odin, when no longer recognized as a deity, becomes simply the wild huntsman or Hellequin ; when civilization makes even such a being no longer credible, he still survives possibly as Harlequin or Robin Hood. Hitherto the systematic study of comparative folk-lore has been almost exclusively confined within Aryan limits. But the successful application of scientific method in that field has encouraged many labourers in other regions, and an amount of material is being accumulated which may be expected ultimately to yield very important results in ethnology and anthropology. So far as the savage tribes of the world are concerned, it would seem that the greater proportion of trustworthy data is to be derived from that department of their " folk-lore" which manifests itself in traditionary practices; but in no case, indeed, can the com parative mythologist afford to overlook the qualifying or corroborative evidence supplied by what may be called comparative " ethology." Every custom has an instructive history if we can but succeed in interpreting its lore. In ascertaining when, where, and how any given tribe came first to worship plants, or animals, or ghosts, we get de finitely nearer the solution of the fundamental problem of anthropology. Even the modern usages of social and domestic life, the observances that accompany such incidents as marriage, birth, and death, when skilfully read, are cap able of telling us something at least of the condition of pri mitive man. See ANTHROPOLOGY, ANIMISM, DEMONOLOGY, FIRE, FUNERAL RITES, MARRIAGE, &c. Literature. The oldest professed collections of English folk-lore are those of Aubrey (Miscellanies, 1686, and frequently reprinted), and Bourne (Antiquitatcs Vulgarcs, 1725). The latter was incor porated by Brand in his Observations on Popular Antiquities, 1777, republished by Sir Henry Ellis in 1813, and again in 1841. The Event-Day Book of Hone appeared in 1826, and The Year Book in 1829. Among the more recent publications of a similar class may be mentioned the Book of Days, and Popular Rhymes of Scot land, by Chambers. Max Miiller s Essay on Comparative Mytho logy was first published in 1856 ; Dasent s Tales from the Norse, with an introduction, in 1859 ; Campbell s Popular Tales of the West Highlands in 1861 ; Kelly s Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-Lore in 1863 ; see also Hardwick s Traditions, Superstitions, and Folk-Lore (1872); and Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders, by W. Henderson, with an appendix on Household Stories, by S. Baring-Gould (1876). As for Germany, since the publication of the Kinder- u. Ilausmdhrchcn (1812), and of the Deutsche Mythologie (1835), "the myths, the legends, the nursery-tales, the songs, proverbs, and popular customs of the Scan dinavo-Germanic race have had a whole host of faithful expounders and affectionate illustrators, who have scarcely left a single foot unexplored of that vast and interesting field of tradition " (De Gubernatis). Special reference may be made to the Deutsche Mythologie, by Mannhardt, and to the Zcitschrift fur Deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde, edited by Mannhardt and Wolf (1853-1859). The collection of Norse popular tales by Asbjornsen and Moe (1842-3) has for the most part been translated by l)r Dasent (as above). Castren has given an account of the mytho logy of Finland (Finnische Mythologie, edited by Schiefner) ; Kreuzwald of the popular tales of Esthonia (Ehstnisch-e Mdhrchcn, 1869) ; and Afanassieff of the folk-lore of Russia. The Slavonic mythology has been specially treated by Popoff, KaisaroiF, and Hanusch ; while Osinski and Grohmann have dealt respectively with the folk literatures of Poland and Bohemia. Hahn has published a collection of Griechische u. Albancsisclt.e Mahrchcn (1864), in the introduction to which he gives forty " story-roots " (Marchen- und Sagformeln) ; and something has been done for the folk-lore of Rome by R. H. Busk (1874). For Spain reference may be made to 6 But also, it ought to be added, among Turks, Mongolians, and Samoyedes, in other words, beyond the Aryan territory.