Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/510

 486 Coi'respondence.

twenty years I have repeatedly heard people say that it was erected in memory of children drowned near the bridge.

T. E. LoNES.

Modern Greek Folk-Tales and Ancient Greek Mythology.

In no department of folklore has a pragmatical method done more to obscure issues and render the facts difficult to ascertain than in the study of modern Greek folklore. It is natural, of course, that investigators should start with a strong desire to find relics of classical survival : the consequent temptation to make of even minor similarities birthmarks of heredity has proved strong indeed. The better acquainted I become with the data of Com- parative Folklore and with modern Greek folklore, the more sceptical I find myself with regard to alleged cases of survival in the latter from classical antiquity ; and the careless way in which assertions of survival are thrown out makes it all the more difficult to distinguish those very interesting, though to my mind very few, cases where the claim seems to be genuine and credible. It is not my purpose, however, to discourse on the general ques- tion, but to protest against certain specific assertions of survival in modern Greek folk-tales which have naturally been taken in good faith as sound data to work with by students of Comparative P^olk- lore who have paid no special attention to the modern Greek material.

One of the latest victims is M. van Gennep. In his very interesting little book. La Formation des Legendes, he quotes as cases of survival the stories of The Carpenter, the Tailor, and the Man of God, and the notorious Demeter tale published by Lenormant.' Now, in the first place, I confess that I am a sceptic as to the existence in modern Greek folk-tales of any survivals at all in the direct line from classical antiquity. After spending some considerable time and trouble in acquainting myself with the main types of modern Greek folk-story, I do not know of a single instance of indubitable survival from classical mythology. The incidents or types which are common to both are common also to ^ A. van Gennep, op. cil., pp. 59-60.