under the head of folk-lore." Nothing could be more erroneous than this. Folk-lore can never be said to be running into mythology; though, on the contrary, mythology may be said to be perpetually running into folk-lore. It is only when mythology, displaced as a form of religion, becomes perpetuated as popular beliefs that it can be classed as folk-lore and placed side by side in that long category of manners and customs, superstitions and beliefs, old sayings and proverbs, legends and traditions, hero-tales and god-tales, which constitute the lore of the people. Unfortunately Sir George Cox is upheld to some extent by Professor Sayce. In the Introduction to the Science of Language we read:—"Myth, folk-lore, fable, allegory—all these are related terms, but terms to be carefully kept apart. A myth is the misinterpreted answer given by the young mind of man to the questions the world about him seemed to put The term folk-lore is of vaguer meaning. It embraces all those popular stories of which the fairy-tales of our nursery are a good illustration, but from which the religious element of mythology is absent .... Though the figures of mythology may move in the folk-lore of a people they have changed their form and fashion; the divinity that once clothed them is departed; they are become vulgar flesh and blood. It is true that it is often difficult to draw the line between folk-lore and mythology, to define exactly where the one ends and the other begins, and there are many instances in which the two terms overlap one another; but this is the case in all departments of research, and the broad outlines of the two types of popular legend stand clearly distinct. It is a mere misuse of the term to include myths, as is sometimes done, under the general head ' folk-lore.' The precise relation of mythology and folk-lore is still a disputed question. There is much folk-lore which can be traced back with certainty to faded myths."[1] Nothing could be clearer than this passage in its definition and conception of mythology, and it recognises too the absence of mythological motif in folk-lore. This is of course a distinct advance in the matter of definition; it is really the commencing chapter in the best studies of our science. But when it leaves the domain of simple definition and touches upon the broader
- ↑ Sayce, Introduction to the Science of Language, vol. ii. pp. 276-276.
