Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/324

 296 Three Lives of Saints :

Purgatory and the History of St. Brendan — in which history seems altogether left aside to make way for Legend or Myth.

Thus we see that the problems that need solving in dealing with the Legends, Beliefs, etc., of this period are as follows : Firstly, the line of demarcation between science and folklore is extremely difficult to define. Their science reads like what we should expect their folklore to be. It is hard to distinguish their popular beliefs.

Secondly, how can we reach the folk themselves } We have glimpses of them now and then in the acute observa- tions of some of the writers ; but if they pass unrecorded nowadays, how much more is that true of them over 500 years ago.

Thirdly, we need to dwell as carefully upon the negative side of the evidence as we do upon the positive elements. Those things that are omitted may have as deep a signifi- cance as those that are stated, and an omission is more easily overlooked than a statement.

Fourthly, the proportion of things interesting and dull must be observed and recorded. It is easy to jot down all the picturesque beliefs, and just as easy to neglect the pro- portion that exists between these and the dull remainder, though this may be as important to the student of folklore if he wishes to arrive at just conclusions, as the accurate weighing of certain substances may be to the chemist if he wants the materials he is experimenting upon to combine and produce the desired explosion.

We can now sum up the relative results of the two methods postulated at the beginning of this paper. Our examination has shown that it is practically impossible to reach the folk mind as distinguished from the scientific mind of the England of the thirteenth century, and that however convenient the word FOLKLORE may be, the term cannot logically be used of that period except to signify institution or custom. On the other hand, that