Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/15

Rh books, not by the peasant children from whom the tales are originally taken; and the appeal with those who use them will always be from book to book, not from tradition to tradition. Literature such as this may, and does, kil; tradition, but it does not create it.

It seems to me we have two areas within which folk-tales are found—two areas sharply defined, in this as in other things, and always distinct and separate. The one area is occupied by literary influences, and has been insensibly increasing from the times of Jacques de Vitry to the times of Madame D'Aulnoy and the modern fairy-tale books; the second area is occupied by tradition, and has been insensibly decreasing from its origin in primitive times to its survival in modern times. I can conceive of little or no overlapping here. Tales that are told in the literary area are a group by themselves, literary in form, and dependent upon literature for their life. Occasionally it may happen, and has happened, that some story more popular than ordinary has become known orally, and perhaps may have been transmitted through a generation by tradition. But the tradition soon dies out unless it is constantly refreshed by literature. I represent this area to myself as a triangle whose apex just touches primitive life, and whose base extends to modern times, and is ever widening.

Primitive life.

Peasant tradition.

Literary borrowings.

The traditional area is sharply marked off from this;