Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/114

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It cannot but be welcome to all students of storiology to have collected in one volume the majority of Köhler's notes on the study of popular tales, scattered as these are throughout a number of publications, many of a periodical nature practically inaccessible to whoever has not at command the resources of a large library. Whatever story-theme was handled by Köhler—save in the case of Celtic storiology, with the special features and conditions of which he was imperfectly acquainted—his treatment, up to the date of its publication, is practically exhaustive. Every serious student of tales must in the first place ascertain what Köhler has said; not only will he find the task of investigation immensely lightened, he is almost sure to be referred to sources which he would have overlooked. Even were this volume a bare reprint, its utility as a working tool would make it indispensable. But it also contains a certain amount of inedited matter, addenda from Köhler's posthumous remains, and a fair number of additional references due to Dr. Bolte.

I cannot, however, think that Köhler himself would have been satisfied with this publication. The Index is altogether insufficient, and the editor has not done a tithe of what he should to bring Köhler's information up to date by supplementing and, where necessary, revising it. The authority which Köhler so justly earned by his unwearied labour, his encyclopædic range of reading and his scientific caution, makes it dangerous to stereotype matter the provisional nature of which was felt by none more keenly than by the author. The student who turns up a statement in Orient und Occident or in Germania of the sixties is under no temptation to regard it as the final word of research: the case is different when he meets it in a volume dated 1898. I am fully aware that a second Köhler would be required to fully supplement the work of the first, and I do not wish to appear ungracious in commenting upon what Dr. Bolte has done. His additions are frequently of use. But that more might and should have been done in this particular case, and that the policy of reprinting verbatim matter which has necessarily become antiquated is a doubtful one, are propositions I venture to urge without fear of contradiction.

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