Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/292

 284 not trace folk-tales back to India; but they will certainly result in tracing each of them back to a probable birthplace, and it will be only for that birth-place that the doctrine of "survivals" will apply. For I cannot admit that because a peasantry receives and repeats a folk-tale with "unnatural" incidents, the peasants believe in the real occurrence of those incidents. It is of the essence of folk-tales that they are not believed to be true. Those that are so believed are myths, sagas, or legends, which are thus differentiated from folk-tales. Or is Mr. Lang of opinion that English children believe in speaking frogs or conversational tables because they enjoy The Well of the World's End, or Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse?

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