Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/71

 Rh even in our own land, and if any such aid as this was ever given to it in Western Christendom generally, there is no longer any surprise to be felt at its long continuance.

The discussion on the particular problems of folk-lore which is presented by folk-tales has not been allowed to drop back during the last session, and Mr. Nutt's powerful and singularly lucid defence of the anthropological interpretation is a performance of which any society might be proud. I confess the folk-tale loses much of its old charm now that it has become the sport of literature. Maimed, altered, and distorted in one direction; clothed in red, blue, and green in another direction—of course, those who cannot see that these are not the doings of folk-lore will never give the folk-tale all the credit it really deserves as an element of the anthropology of civilised races. They will always remember its literary rough handling, and they will rather scorn its traditional faithfulness. So that personally I am not at all sorry that some attention is now being given to real hero-tales for the purpose of the literary amusement of our children. Folk-tales, when they are reduced to the level of literature, will never really teach children literature, nor morals, nor manners; because all their charm is in the unconscious—the unconscious—beauty and poetry of their incidents and characters. Let the real hero-tale of history then be brought to do its duty in the nursery, and in the meantime let us note how it was in the years gone by the original of the traditional tale itself.

The following is in outline the story of a real Kaffir heroine: A father who had been unfortunate, and had lost all his wealth, was importuned to give up his two daughters for wives to the master who had befriended him in his necessities. He had no power, even if he had the will, to resist the demand; so in due time the daughters were sent to their intended lord's kraal. They would not go into the hut, until at last they were forcibly carried in. It was night, and one of the girls, worn out with fatigue and