Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/512

 488 Correspondence.

Georgian, and Oriental versions are neither more nor less like the classical story than the modern Greek versions.

The other ' typical survival ' may be found by English readers in Mr. Lawson's Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Reli- gion.'^ Mr. Lawson of course accepts its validity. Its claim would certainly be stronger if it were possible to accept his general account of the survivals of Demeter in Modern Greece. That account, however, which it is not possible for me to criticise in detail here, is vitiated by an acknowledged disregard of the study of Comparative Folklore, which would have saved the author many misapprehensions and one or two mistakes.

But on their own merits both the story and its collector are open to the gravest suspicions. The only doubt in my own mind is whether Lenormant or his informant is responsible for the fabri- cation. The French savant did not bear the highest reputation for scrupulous accuracy. But, even if S. Demetra was in the story when it was told to him, it still remains suspicious. A striking proof of its authenticity to the uninitiated is the fact that it was collected at Eleusis. But those who have travelled in Modern Greece are aware that Eleusis, like the rest of Attika, is inhabited by an Albanian population. A few miles from I'>leusis the peasants are all bilingual, and habitually talk Albanian among themselves ; I have been in some villages where some of the women spoke Albanian only. That is one of the reasons why the common speech of Attika is ' purer ' {i.e. more like ancient Greek) than in some parts of Greece. There has been no mother dialect to compete with the language taught in the schools. If Lenormant received the story as he has given it to us, I have very little doubt that the classical allusions were inserted by the narrator, who was anxious to assert his birthright of Ancient Greek tradi- tion. No one who is familiar with modern Greeks can doubt the ease or eagerness with which this would have been attempted. In collecting dialect or folklore material the student's greatest

•* J. C. Lawson, op. cit., pp. S0-4. ^Ir. Lawson admits ihe Albanian source of the story, but underestimates, in my opinion, the significance of that fact. The story was pubHshed by Lenormant in his JMonographie de la voie sacvt'e ^leusinienne ; an EngHsh translation is to be found in Garrett and Stuart- Glennie, Gi-eck Folk Poesy, vol. ii., pp. 171-6.