Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/27

 Rh their own; the people possess a literature, written or preserved by memory; and it is the study of this poetry and this literature which now claims our attention. The field is vast, and unfortunately the workers are few. It has taken a long time ere the Cinderella of modern literature has come to her own, and even now her sway is not undisputed. How many can or will believe that in the thatched cottages or in the dark hovels on moor or hill, among the labourers on land and the toilers on the sea, there is the longing, the unconscious feeling and hoping, for a life that is better and for a life that is purer, and that among the untutored and unlearned there is a system of philosophy, a dim philosophy of life, which in its way tries to solve the riddle of the world and to place everything in its proper position, which seeks an answer to the great problems of sorrow and death, which animates the world around us with dark or luminous figures, for which everything that lives and moves is a symbol with a definite meaning, which tries to unravel the skein of tangled events by the short cut of fatality, or endeavours to lift the veil of the future by reading the stars or watching the movements of animal, bird, or tree, which recognises hidden, mysterious powers in written letters and signs, in the spells of wizards and incantations of witches, and in amulets and charms, and which believes in the far-reaching power of persons who wield mysterious forces. Whence does it all come? What does it portend?

Natural science teaches that the world is an endless chain in which no link is missing. The same truth obtains in the spiritual world, in the realm of the human soul and its achievements. There is an endless chain with unbroken links. The aim and object of the Folk-Lore Society is to follow it up, and to show how closely these rings are riveted together, and that popular literature is an important ring in the chain. It is a proud boast for us to say that