Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/424

 382 to the ritual side of the study; not what the folk feigned in saga and song, but what it wrought in rite and practice, attracted his attention and that of his followers. It was precisely these elements that proved susceptible of fertile comparison with the extra-Aryan material revealed by Waitz, Bastian, Tylor, and McLennan. As far as myth and legend and saying were concerned, the Aryan unity had shown itself, practically speaking, self-sufficient; what savage material was adduced in comparison was possibly derivative and, in any case, brought little fresh light. It was far otherwise with rite and practice, and the animating principles which underlie them; it soon became obvious that here comparison was both illuminating and fertile.

Thus, in the first half century since our study became major and self-conscious, say since 1813, it marched in the wake of Aryan comparative philology and mythology; it isolated and emphasised racial differences. In the second half century,—Dr. Tylor's works marking the dividing stage,—its tendency has been more and more to march in the wake of comparative anthropology, to consider the facts from the standpoint of culture stratification rather than as factors in distinctive historical and racial developments. Whilst the earlier folklorists may be criticised for isolating the lores of the folk, say of England, Germany, and France, as distinct, independent, and self-contained entities, (a tendency which survives in full force among the non-folklorist public!), the very opposite criticism may be passed upon his anthropological successor; he may be taxed with considering the facts, in his method of research at all events, "out of space, out of time," and some critics have hinted that the result of the method of "wild" is certainly not "sublime"!

The question of racial elements in the lore of the folk attracted me from the earliest stages of my interest in the subject, coæval with the foundation of our Society. From the beginning, too, I felt that this question could nowhere be studied with greater chance of success than in Britain. Thanks to our insular position, the facts of historic superposition and mutual influence of different races are far more clearly established than in other European lands where the shock of races and cultures has been longer, more intense, and more obscure. It early became evident to me that under a common designation were comprehended