Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/251

 Rh other variations. I do not hide from myself the difficulty which may beset our paths also in this direction. Very much, if not everything, depends upon the skill of the modern collector; and again, if a parallel is not to be found in these collections, we are far from justified in assuming that it does not exist among those nations. If not found in one spot, it often turns up in another spot, and the argumentum ex silentio is no argument at all.

I have thus far been roaming about in the wide and limitless field of airy speculations, befitting one lost in the wondrous world of tales and legends. I have tried to sketch a new line of study, so to mount up to the fountain of the imaginary stream of tradition. But hitherto we have been walking through a dried-up bed of the river: will it lead us to the water of life, by which the chopped up heroes are called back to life; or will it all vanish when the charm is broken? It is time, therefore, that I return to the world of stern realities and explain to you how I came to lead you so long, and, I fear, so weary a way. It was because I wished to introduce you to the old parchments and the treasures they have kept faithfully for so many a century.

I have now the honour to introduce you first to a remarkable volume of miscellaneous nature in the Bodleian Library, containing among other things, close upon 100 moral tales. Of these 30 or 40 constitute, thus far, the oldest "Preceptorium" on the Decalogue, being "exempla" arranged according to the Ten Commandments. The other 60 and more, are independent legends and tales. This MS. is famous for the fact that it contains a Hebrew—Old-French glossary and is older than the year 1,200. It belongs at latest to the second half of the twelfth century and was written either in France or here in England. It is thus older than Jacques de Vitry. But the date of the copy is not that of the original composition. Most of these tales and legends are copied from much more ancient sources,