Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/325

Rh the Folklore of the present day has a very strong light thrown upon it by the MSS. of the thirteenth as well as of other centuries, earlier and later; and that by means of a systematic investigation of the Literature of our country, we shall be able, very possibly, to classify the different items of superstition, belief, and tradition which are now or recently have been extant; further, to separate (to use a metaphor) the palaeolithic from the neolithic, and to draw the distinction between these finds and those which belong to the metal ages.