Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/107

 Rh retained from classic antiquity. But this very poverty is in itself an advantage. The lore of our folk has behind it no such long ages of civilisation to crush or modify it as has that of Greece or Italy. It is, however, to the two great barbaric stocks, the Celts and the Teutons, that we owe the preservation at least (I will not raise controversy by saying the origin) of the folklore of North-western Europe, and in the light which its study can throw back upon our barbaric forefathers consists much of its interest. We must conceive of Celts and Teutons as originally occupying Central Europe, and radiating thence, the Celts first, in all directions save apparently to the due north, the Teutons secondly, first to the north and then later in all directions. In their southern and south-eastern advance the Celts met with mightier powers, more highly organised civilisations, into which they and their culture melted and were lost. In the north-west alone, in these islands that is, were they able to maintain and develop their institutions, their speech, and their literature, free, or almost free, from the all-dominating influence of Rome.

The very fact that they could advance no further, that before them lay the boundless, trackless sea, that they were compelled to halt, and, as it were, to stereotype their culture, whatever lowering influence it may be held to have had upon the vital energy of the race, had at least this advantage, to preserve for us stages of custom and fancy which otherwise would have passed away. To a far less extent this was also the case with the Teutons who invaded Britain; they did not, as did their Goth and Vandal and Frank cousins, come into contact with Rome herself, Rome weakened, attenuated to a shadow, yet powerful enough to subjugate her overthrowers, to largely impose upon them her own civilisation. Our Low German forefathers were at liberty to develop their own institutions, to exhibit a type of commonwealth more truly German than that of the kinsmen who remained on the Continent to build up half