Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/433



Paul's Grundriss is nearing conclusion, and the last pages of the work, much of which has direct interest for folk-lorists, are devoted to folk-lore as such. Lundell's account of Scandinavian folk-lore research is not completed in the present section: what is given is of extreme interest to all students of our science. Scandinavia, indeed, led the way in the organisation and prosecution of folk-lore studies. How many folk-lorists are aware that in the year 1630 the Swedish State-antiquaries were officially instructed to collect "old chronicles, histories, immemorial traditions, and ballads about dragons, great worms, dwarves, giants, tales about celebrated persons, old monasteries, castles and their former kings, hero-songs and rhymed ballads, as well music as words"? Nearly two centuries went by before such liberal and intelligent instructions were given by any other Government.

Portions of Paul's Grundriss have already been noticed in these pages (Prof York Powell's article on "Teutonic Myth and Saga", supra, i, 118). We hope before long to notice Dr. Mogk's Mythologie, the only existing survey of Teutonic mythology which starts from a folk-lore basis. In the meantime I may briefly indicate the importance of the work as a whole to the folk-lorist. The student of ballads or tales is being perpetually brought into contact with the productions of literature proper; the student of