Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/123

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May I point out that Kraljevich Marko (not Kralj) is not a Bulgar hero at all. He was the son of Vukashin, the ruler of Skodra or Scutari, then a portion of the great Servian Empire but now the capital of North Albania, and was a Servian hero. His mother came from Pilitor on what is now the Montenegrin frontier. He lived at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century. This was long after the Bulgarian empire had been destroyed by the Servians and just before the Turks destroyed the Servian empire. Marko afterwards ruled as a vassal chief under the Turks, and his capital was Prilep, a town still owned by the Turks. The footprints of his magic horse are shown not only in Servia but in Old Servia, Macedonia, and wherever the Turks formerly held sway, and there is a whole cycle of Servian ballad poetry, still popular, of which he is the hero.

Friends in India often ask me: What is the use of collecting Folk-Lore, and more particularly, what are the objects of the Folk-Lore Society? Now the objects of the Society are set forth in the first of its Rules, which runs: "The F.-L. S. has for its objects the collection and publication of Popular Traditions, Legendary Ballads, Local Proverbial Sayings, Superstitions and Old Customs (British and Foreign), and all subjects relating thereto."

Now taking Folk-Lore to be that which the mass of the people receive from tradition, or which springs up spontaneously from among themselves, and Culture as that which is imposed on them from without. Rule I. is rather apt to give people the impression that the objects of the Society do not include the investigation of the history of Culture, but are limited to the specific subjects set