Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/39

 *mother, virile father sending his sons out to find their place in the world, loving brother and sister, gentle people, hateful people, ill-tempered people, cruel people, jealous people, kind people, wily people, frank people, brave people, cowards, old people, children, sad people, merry people. Besides these, animals, pigs and bears, cows and hens and goats, inhabit the child's world side by side with man, helping the story to make its way to the child's affections. Then there is the host of witching fairy folk: fairies, giants, elves, pixies, witches, goblins. Music as well as language has attempted to suggest them, and with surprising agreement in artistic convention. Language makes fairies light, airy, tripping; goblins, grotesque; so does music. Language makes the giant huge, clumsy, big-handed and big-footed, but stupid; Wagner gives ponderous musical motif to the dragon, the "laidly worm," the giant of his music dramas, and also makes him conquerable.

The workmanship, composition, and style. Much story-telling is spoiled by disregard of the composition of the narrative. By composition here is meant what is meant in painting or sculpture, the arranging, or grouping, of the materials, to build out the whole.

The method of grouping in the folk story is apparent. At the beginning of the story are the time