Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/44

 22 Annual Report of the Council.

Tradition. At the same time, a local committee is by no means indispensable ; for most of the collections which have hitherto reached the Council have been made by workers either single-handed or with only slight external assistance.

The Council feel that the first duty of the Society is to superintend the collection of folklore in the United Kingdom. In order to deal adequately, however, with the fast perishing mass of British traditions, it is necessary that interest in the subject should be spread much more widely than it is at present. With this end in view, the Council appeal to members of the Society, and especially to those in the pro- vinces, to make known among their friends and neighbours the objects of the Society, and to assist in observing and recording the current folklore of their own neighbourhoods. It is felt that there must be many persons in all parts of the kingdom to whom local antiquities and peculiarities are a subject, not merely of curiosity, but of intelligent interest. If such were made aware of the existence and aims of the Society, and of the great historical and archaeological value of the sayings, superstitions, songs, tales, and customs which have been rife among the peasantry, and which are now fast dying out, it is believed that they would be glad to render all the assistance in their power in recording them. The Council would welcome such help, and gladly under- take the publication not merely of collections, but also, in the Transactions, of any authentic items of folklore which would otherwise become forgotten. During the past year material has been published from Aberdeenshire, the Aran Islands, Argyleshire, Connaught, Devonshire, Donegal, Glamorganshire, Gloucestershire, the Hebrides, Hereford- shire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leitrim, Lincoln- shire, Middlesex, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Perthshire, Rad- norshire, Somersetshire, Staffordshire, and Suffolk. Much of this was previously unpublished, or scattered and practi- cally inaccessible.