Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/37

 Rh to Christmas, leaving other customs aside, there are the Christmas-log or Yule-log, the Christmas carol, the Fool-plough, the Sword dance, the Lord of Misrule, Mumming, and last, but not least, the Christmas box. Each of these customs can easily be traced back to ancient beliefs, to Roman Saturnalia, to ancient cults of Mithra and Adonis, or, on the other hand, to the ancient popular theatre, and to the various forms of entertainment, of a religious or secular character, the latter in time preponderating. Side by side with the Mystery Plays, there were dramatic performances, then came the Mummers, and finally Punch and Judy. Legends of saints have also been the basis of religious customs which were kept on certain days, and so on through the whole gamut of popular traditions. Looked upon as the practices of the folk, they were treated with contempt and ridicule, but through the scientific investigation of their origin we have now obtained a deeper insight into their true meaning. They have been rescued from the position of obscurity and inferiority into which they had been thrust, and placed side by side with the more ancient and more developed types of which the importance cannot be gainsaid. They are found to be the latest representatives of older forms of belief and practice.

The next question which we might ask is. Whence did they originate, and how did they reach the masses? I am not discussing here the problem of remote origin. It lies outside the sphere of our immediate investigations. No one will deny that, irrespective of date or place of origin, the individual and not the mass was the first originator. A poem must be the product of one individual poet, a tale must be told first by one gifted story-teller, and a custom must be instituted or practised for the first time by one single individual, who sets the example. How then did all this lore reach distant lands and penetrate among the masses, and, if so, did it