Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/323

 Rh source. In many cases, I think, the collector can do no more than set down the name of the place where, or the informant from whom, he obtained the several items, without committing himself to any statement as to how far they are universal or not.

Negative evidence, again, is most difficult to obtain, but valuable in proportion to the difficulty of proving the negative. In fact, it only can be proved (as it has been remarked to me) “if a collector gets hold of a thorough believer in the superstitions of his locality, and can find out if there are any other superstitions of other localities which he decidedly does not believe in, any that he laughs at, any that he looks upon as stupid or ‘superstitious’, while his own belief, of course, is not superstitious!”

For myself, I have not found the English poor laugh at superstitions they are not acquainted with, unless they are, as many are, superior to superstition in general. They do not get farther than a slow, grave remark: “No, I niver heered that. I shouldna think as there can be annything in that. Now, as to (so and so), that’s true, that is. For my gronfayther knowed a mon. . .” et cetera! But it is beyond question that to ascertain what a superstitious man does not know, is quite as valuable for our purpose as to learn what he does know. Even then the collector should not be too hasty in drawing conclusions. The information he fails again and again to obtain, may some day crop up quite unexpectedly at his very doors.

The ideal of geographical collection would be reached if a number of collectors would undertake definite areas adjoining each other—say, for instance, the several hundreds of a county—would set down what is known, and what, after every possible inquiry, is not known there, and would then compare results.

II.—Then there is the question of the relations between Folk-lore and History. The early history of every nation is dependent on oral tradition, not on written records, and so is open to doubt. But the questions, how much dependence may be placed upon tradition, and how long the