Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/87

 Rh record for the first time within the last few centuries. For, in speaking of them, we mean—not tales in the abstract, but—concrete tales with a definite form at a known and not very remote date: a form which cannot possibly exist unmodified for an unlimited period. To call the existing races of mankind modern does not in the least prejudice any views one may hold as to the antiquity of man, and the same applies to folk-tales.

[I had certainly no intention of denying to the folk-tale the capacity for development, whether of motive, incident, or style, within the period defined as modern by Mr. Abercromby, and I thank him for the opportunity of removing any misconception as to my meaning. I not only admit the capacity; but the fact that it has been exercised considerably, and increasingly of late years, seems to me the strongest argument against the recent origin of the archaic elements of the folk-tale.

I can the more easily understand my having laid myself open to misapprehension on Mr. Abercromby's part, as I misunderstood his letter in one important respect. It seemed to me to postulate an archetype for each tale, all later versions of which are departures from the purity of the original standard. On my urging objections to this view, he wrote: "I demur to being credited with believing in a single archetype from which all others of the same type have sprung. On the contrary, I regard the type merely as the fundamental incidents common to a group of tales which may have had half a dozen or more origins"—a statement with which I find myself in complete accord.

It is evident that misapprehension is likely to arise from the ambiguity of the word "modern". This may be used as simply equivalent to chronologically recent; but such usage seems to me to ignore the current significance of the word. When we speak of modern culture we certainly do not mean the culture of the Matabele, the Chinese, or the