Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/171

 Ethnological Data in Folklore. 143

a mass of fragments pitched on one side from a previous sorting, and further that this determinative group exactly meets the pre-tribal organisation which is made known to us from comparative evidence. But beyond this is the geo- graphical distribution of these two groups. The tribal mar- riage-group follows the line of the tribal fire-group ; the anti-tribal marriage-group follows the line of the anti-tribal water-group. I argue therefore that what is pre-tribal in marriage-customs is also pre-Celtic and pre-Teutonic, and I claim that this argument must be met before the ethnological basis of folklore can be discounted.

Now I think it will be clear that both my methods and my material are quite different from those adopted by the President. From my methods and materials I conclude that ethnological data in folklore can be determined ; from the President's methods and materials he comes to the opposite conclusion. I place the two studies in this con- trast with the hope that out of it we may arrive at a common understanding upon so important a subject.

ETHNOLOGICAL DATA IN FOLKLORE: A Reply to the foregoing Criticism.

BY ALFRED NUTT.

{Read at Meeting of i^th November, i8g8.)

Mr. Gomme's criticisms show that we are at issue upon two points : the relative importance of what may be styled the imaginative and practical sides of folklore in enabling the discrimination of racial elements, and the best way to prosecute the search for those elements.