Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/407

intelligibilities. Nay more—variant versions were welded together, harmonising additions were made, the loose chronology of the saga was brought into accord with pseudo-history, scraps of new learning were plentifully introduced. Moreover, so Prof Zimmer thinks, changes were actually made in the framework of the stories under the influence of Norse legend. But with this exception he looks upon the tales as still seventh century in substance; i.e., the changes made between the hypothetical original written form and the eleventh-century texts we possess are, he holds, secondary and not primary. What follows? Obviously, that little reliance can be placed upon any archaeological argument a silentio: we cannot condemn the texts as post-Christian because they do not contain traits which we know to be pre-Christian; these may, are likely indeed, to have often dropped out. Nor can we lay much stress upon the archæological evidence in unimportant details where nothing stood in the way of the transcriber's or reviser's substituting a familiar for an unfamiliar or wholly forgotten word or idea. On the other hand, every archaic trait, however slight, must date back to the original form. The monkish editors and transcribers simply could not, even had the thought suggested itself to them, have invented details of manners and customs long passed away in order to give their versions an old-fashioned look. Unless, indeed—for there is an unless—certain traits held their ground by virtue of their belonging to an arsenal of epic clichés. But an epic convention implies a long and vigorous epic production, and M. Pflugk-Hartung is debarred from using this latter argument, as he maintains that the Irish sagas were new compositions of the tenth century. Let us then test his argument by the canons we have just laid down. Iron is frequently mentioned in these tales. But, says M. Pflugk-Hartung, iron was unknown in pre-Christian Ireland, ergo every tale in which iron appears must have been composed long after Christianity. On the other hand, the tales which profess and approve themselves