Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/262

 OBITUARY.

PAUL SÉBILLOT.

the death, on the 23rd April last, of M. Paul Sébillot, the founder, and for many years the secretary of the Société des Traditions Populaires, and editor of the Revue des Traditions Populaires, our French colleagues and the scientific world have suffered a severe, if not irreparable, loss. He was born at Matignon, Côtes du Nord, in 1843, of an old bourgeoise family. His father and forefathers for several generations had been medical practitioners. Dinan and Rennes were the scenes of his early education; and he was destined for the practice of the law. But his tastes were artistic rather than juridical, and it was on this side of his nature that he was first attracted to the study of folklore. To an intensely patriotic Breton like himself his native scenes and the stories, songs and sayings current among the people, were his inspiration, though he probably owed not a little also to those distinguished Bretons who, more than half a century ago, had begun to study the literature of Brittany and other Celtic countries, and whose studies led naturally on to that of popular traditions everywhere and in all forms. Of that band of pioneers I think only the venerable M. Henri Gaidoz still survives.

M. Sébillot is probably most widely known by his collections of Breton folktales obtained at first-hand from the peasantry of Upper (i.e. French-speaking) Brittany. But unsurpassed in charm as these tales are, they are by no means his only, perhaps not his most important, contributions to traditional science. He was an unwearied and methodical worker. Indeed,