Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/131

Cameron had heard them, who they were, whence they came, and when they told the tales; he satisfied himself as to the power of Cameron's memory, and finally made investigations which convinced him that the stories were generally known as folk-tales in Argyllshire and the neighbourhood. They come to us, therefore, with credentials of an unexceptionable character; and they are given not only in English but also in their original Gaelic, for whom it may concern. The importance of accuracy, such as Mr. MacDougall displays, is insisted on in a vigorous passage of Mr. Alfred Nutt's Introduction to the volume before us. I take leave to quote the passage in full, not only for its own qualities, but because I am happy to shelter my pertinacity on this point beneath the authority of one who cannot be accused of being insensible to any literary charm that may distinguish stories valueless for scientific purposes. He says:—"At a comparatively early stage of the study the searcher after facts as facts came to see the importance of getting them in the most genuine form obtainable. This, too, has been set down to his innate pedantry. And yet a moment's reflection shows that, important as a rigorous and accurate method is to him, it is yet more important to the student who values folk-lore as the expression of what is most essential and intimate in the consciousness of a race. If by its means we can indeed diagnose the spiritual and intellectual temper of mankind before it has been transformed and levelled by modern culture, is it not absolutely necessary that the diagnosis should be based upon ascertained fact? Yet, strange to say, men who profess the most enthusiastic sympathy for the 'folk', are content to ground their enthusiasm upon material which has as much claim to be called 'folk-lore' as the majority of circulating-library novels. Stranger still, this particular form of cant is always sure of outside countenance, and the writers are many to bewail as dreadful or shocking the desire for accurate knowledge of folk-lore, and the refusal to indulge in pretty but unmeaning generalities."