Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/244

 218 but a large proportion of these are, no doubt, inferior versions of what he has already printed.

The tales given in these volumes have the same merit as Kristensen's other work, that they faithfully represent the form in which the tradition has been preserved, without any attempt to bring it into conformity with the taste of a public for which it is not primarily intended. The result is that many of the incidents—in some cases, even the mainspring of the story—have a coarseness which, while perfectly natural and inoffensive to the circle in which the Æventyr is at home, makes the collections more valuable as folklore than useful for the entertainment of children. This, however, only applies to the volumes as a whole; the greater number of the individual tales are quite free from this objection; and it will be understood that Kristensen has included the others simply because, without them, the picture would be incomplete. The Æventyr naturally belong to a sphere of thought where plainness is not only possible but unavoidable, and to remove all traces of what does not please a more refined taste would be to falsify the facts. It is quite possible, as Kristensen suggests, that a general sinking has taken place in the tone of these stories, as the result of unfavourable physical surroundings, and that the original form of the tales was on a much higher intellectual and imaginative level than its modern representative. But even if this is the case, we cannot by omissions restore the original form; the story in its present shape is adapted to its environment, and reflects with wonderful accuracy the prevailing tone of the society that has preserved it. Different versions of the same story usually display great freedom of treatment on the part of the narrator; the plot remains the same, but the surroundings are quite new, and often imagined with great realism. Very frequently two different stories are combined in a more or less skilful fashion, supplying clear evidence that the narrator is not confined to a mechanical repetition of