Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/246

 220 this has been systematically neglected by the students of fairy tales. The reason is not far to seek. European folk-tales, and especially those in modern collections, have lost most, if not all, of the religious element. The more we go to the East, the more the religious character of the tale will become pronounced. In the West few of the supernatural beings have been allowed to subsist; they are on sufferance and wait to obtain leave to go. Their surroundings have departed, and we meet only with such beings in our tales as have not yet died out from the cruder forms of belief. The popular mythology of the Slavonians, or Albanians, or modern Greeks, or Rumanians is incomparably richer than that of any of the western nations. Their fairy tales are therefore fuller, richer, more vivid, and to my mind much more true to the original form, than any of the pale counterparts in western folklore. I know the Celtic faddists will turn fiercely upon me and point out to me modern tales in ancient MSS. of the 15th century, which may be copies of the 12th, and these in their turn copies of the 5th or more ancient texts. It is not here the place to discuss questions of literary criticism; but one point is certain, at least for those who have had occasion to compare ancient texts with later copies. They are never absolutely identical. A century will make a difference, often a very pronounced difference, between the original and the copy. The copyist is always also author in partibus infidelium. He handles the subject very freely. He will add and subtract, just as his fancy dictates to him. There is no such scrupulous observance of the author's rights as we would fain imagine. The substance may in some cases remain the same, but the accessories will often undergo a process of transformation so radical as not to be found any longer in the later copy.

This happens to literary monuments. How much more is this the case with the oral tale, subject to the changes and freaks of each new speaker. Small wonder therefore that the religious element should drop out in the West, thus