Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/226

200 was, in addition, very unhealthy, so that some change was desirable. Kristensen applied for, and obtained, the charge of the school at Brandstrup, close to Faarup. The natives were not altogether delighted with this arrangement; they did not consider the collecting of folklore to be any recommendation in a teacher. As a member of a parish council said to him on one occasion: "We won't have you, you take up so much of your time with rubbish; and besides, you can't look after the school and do all that writing as well." However, he not only got the post, but in the same year, after two fruitless applications, received a fresh grant from Government, which enabled him to spend the winter of 1884-85 in collecting the folklore of Vendsyssel, South Sailing, and Fjends Herred. The bulk of this appeared in the 8th volume of Jyske Folkeminder.

By this time Kristensen had become convinced that there was much which he could not hope to reach in person, and which yet ought to be gathered in while it still lived in the mouths of the people. To secure this end he formed a kind of Folk-Lore Society, the members of which sent their contributions to him from all parts of Denmark; these appeared in a periodical entitled Skattegraveren (The Treasure-Digger), which began its career in January, 1884, and continued to be published down to 1889. By that time the Society had so fallen off in point of membership that it was necessary to bring the publication to a close. Some of the material thus gathered also appeared in a collection of "Danish Fairy Tales," of which three parts (380 pages) were published in 1884-88. In all, the Society's work is represented by eight interesting volumes, the editing of which would have been no small labour for most men.

Meanwhile Kristensen, though with some difficulty, had obtained permission more than once to leave his school in charge of assistants, while he, with pecuniary help from Government, went on his folklore tours. The School Board, however, did not look upon this proceeding very