THE PROBLEM OF DIFFUSION:
REJOINDERS.
BY MR. JOSEPH JACOBS, B.A.
Members of the Folk-lore Society will probably be surprised at finding me still alive—as a folk-lorist. The last number of Folk-Lore which appeared while I had the honour of editing it, contained two assaults upon me by such eminent authorities as Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. Alfred Nutt; while, unless I am much mistaken, there was a somewhat petulant passage in the President’s annual speech relating to fairy tales that was directed to my address. With regard to the two former gentlemen, I might perhaps manage by a little adroit dodging to cause their blows to fall reciprocally on one another; for while Mr. Lang was explaining how he had really always agreed with me on the transmission of fairy tales, Mr. Nutt was violently assaulting the conclusions I drew from such transmission. Still, as I should by that means lose the fun of the fight myself, I prefer to continue the contest, and in the course of it cannot perhaps do better than pursue the good old English plan, “One down—if I can get him down—the other come on.”
This is the fifth round—I mean act—in my discussion with Mr. Lang. At the International Folk-lore Congress I ventured to oppose as strenuously as I could what I termed the “Casual Theory” of explanation for the remarkable similarities of plot and incident in many, though by no means all, European folk-tales. I pointed out the immense improbability of the casual coincidence of elaborate plots and the same sequence of incidents occurring in widely scattered localities by chance. At the same time I suggested that the research after survivals in folk-tales, which seemed to be the sole point of interest in their study for Mr. Lang and for Mr. Hartland, whom I coupled with him, was misleading and beside the mark in the study of folk-tales, since until you knew where a folk-tale had originated
