Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/152

144 reference to my fairy-tale books in his Annual Address He first brings against me the charge of having “maimed, altered, and distorted” my originals, a charge which, I observe, is reiterated by Mr. Hartland in the not overkindly review of my latest book in the number of just issued. I am glad to find that my critics read my prefaces with such reverent attention, for they cannot have derived their impression from any direct comparison of the tales which appear in my book with their originals. I have gone into the matter with my two volumes of English tales, and find that one-third of them are absolutely unchanged, verbatim et literatim with my originals, and this applies in nearly every case to the few I have collected from friends or correspondents, whose MSS. have gone untouched to the printers. Half of the stories have merely been altered in language, mostly by turning the Latinisms of the collectors into the simpler Saxon of the folk. Only in the case of some sixth of the stories have there been any considerable alterations, all of which are mentioned in the notes. So that there has been not so much “maiming and distorting” after all, and for what there is I can quote the great authority of the Grimms. Mr. Hartland challenges me, I see, to quote my authority for this, which shows that, however diligently he may read my prefaces, he does not remember them, for I gave the passage to which I refer in the original German in a note to the preface of my first volume. I may repeat it here in an English version. “It will of course be understood”, say the brothers Grimm in the preface to their tales, “that the language and the details have been for the most part supplied by us.” Why does not Mr. Gomme protest against the distortion and maiming as practised by the Grimms?

But I am more concerned with the reason our President gives for his protest; it is because these wicked practices of the Grimms and myself will prevent the folk-tale from receiving “all the credit it really deserves as an element