Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/38

 THE STORY OF DEIRDRE, IN ITS BEARING ON THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE FOLK-TALE.

BY ELEANOR HULL.

(Read at Meeting, 18th November, 1903).

may be studied from two quite different points of view. It may be regarded as a single example of a larger or smaller world-wide class of folk-stories having points of resemblance to each other, or it may be studied historically in its relation to the social development of the country in which it has had its origin. There is a danger in the pursuit of folklore studies that this historic sense should be subordinated to the mere accumulation of examples, and the era of the historical development of the folk-tale can only recently be said to have begun. Yet we have perhaps no surer reflection of the mental and moral changes of attitude in a nation than that which the evolution of a popular folk-tale gives us. Do the folk believe firmly in the supernatural? The story assumes grave and weird proportions. Do they grow sceptical? The folk-tale dwindles into the comic or grotesque. Are they fierce and cruel? The folk-legend is gloomy and vindictive too. Does civilisation stamp out these qualities? The change is often well expressed in the modern aspect of the tale. When the folk-story is studied wholly from the standpoint of its external similarities and ramifications, this most instructive side of its history is apt to be lost sight of, and its value as a guide to the social and intellectual development of a people is impaired.

We propose, in this paper, to sketch the development of a well-known Irish tale through some of the changes which it has undergone during a steady course of popularity over six or seven hundred years.