Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/455

 Reviews, 435

origin of ballad plots, without perceiving that the Professor's real point in the passage quoted is that the occurrence of the same ballad story in (say) Spain and Sweden does not necessarily prove that it was inherited by both from a common ancestor, as it might easily have been carried from one to another during the Middle Ages. Mr. Henderson himself accounts for the likeness of plots, (which he minimises), by coincidence and by conscious copying, and says that folklorists "appear to be quite unaware of the fact that there are romance stories common to nearly all the nations of Europe." This is the very point that the labours of the folk- lorists have established, and that not with regard to romances alone. Where, we may ask, did the romances get this common stock of stories from? Mr. Henderson makes no attempt to discuss the relations of the folktale to the romance and the ballad.

This want of grasp of the whole question of ballad-origins is the more surprising as Mr. Henderson refers freely to the writings of Mr. Frazer, Mr. Hartland, Principal Rhys, and other folklorists. Even a harmless ballad-ghost calls forth a note (vol. iii., p. 320), " For more definite superstitions regarding the return of ghosts see Fraser's \_sic\ Golden Bough, iii., 85-87."

Mr. Henderson's own view of the origin of ballads is that " the question is really one of poetic form." This, and the sort of irrita- tion he shows in speaking of variants, lead us to suspect that, after all, the " origin " he desires to arrive at is simply the full-blown English (or Scottish) ballad as its now-forgotten author originally composed ii. This we are afraid is a hopeless quest, for none can aver that even the earliest blackletter broadside (though neces- sarily unaltered by reciter or collector since publication) is the " original " ballad ; the most corrupted " traditional " version of it may be inherited from an older form still. Meantime we turn with pleasure from Mr. Henderson's " Prefatory Note " to Scott's own " Introductory Remarks on Popular Poetry." Little as Sir Walter knew of folktales and the problems of their origin and diffusion, his mingled common sense and poetic insight enabled him to give a lucid exposition of the probable genesis of folk- song which we, with our infinitely wider knowledge, may largely supplement, but in which we shall find but little to correct.

Charlotte S. Eurne.

2 F 2