Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/425

 Rh can only be a matter of time and study. But what if the stories contain no such traces, or at least only traces of a state of affairs which obtained amongst a small section of humanity, and if the development of the stories has not been conditioned by custom, but by the simple desire to make the tale varied and exciting? How are we, then, to discriminate between what is the record or the symbol of custom or of belief, and what is simply the play of free fancy? Here, again, the fundamental question of folk-lore crops. Is this lore in the main the outcome of the social and mental phases through which a race has passed, or is it a miscellaneous and meaningless collection of borrowings?

It is evident that any historical theory of progress which fits the facts of folk-lore into the general scheme favours the first of these views. In so far I hold the anthropological school may claim Mr. Stuart-Glennie as their partisan, however much divergence there be on questions of method and nomenclature, even of historical evolution at large. The main point is that there has been evolution, and that folk-lore testifies thereto.

I do not think that Mr. Stuart-Glennie's working out of his views is as yet sufficiently exhaustive to allow of satisfactory criticism. It has the most ingenious and taking look; but acceptance must be deferred until not only the Swan-Maid group of tales has been analysed in greater detail, but until other groups of folk-tales have shown themselves susceptible of a like interpretation. It is greatly to be hoped that some workers at folk-tales will apply Mr. Stuart-Glennie's principles and methods. The examination of the märchen corpus is too formidable a task for one man.

As regards Mr. Stuart-Glennie's general theory of matriarchalism, I would urge that it does not derive support from recent history. When of late higher races have come in contact with lower ones, marriage between women of the former and men of the latter has seldom obtained.