Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/355

 Rh superstition are not confined to Maori, Aztec, or Dorsetshire hind; and it was to the men of Athens that St. Paul said, "I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious."

Folk-lore must be content with a corner in the vast field of Anthropology, and the study will not be advanced by being made too wide. The cardinal idea which must not be lost sight of is the opposition of folk-lore to literature, or to written and systematized learning. Folklore is the unwritten learning of the people. This is well illustrated in the two familiar cases of ballads and proverbs. A popular ballad, which is sung in the country side in many versions, whose origin cannot be traced and whose author is unknown, belongs to folk-lore; but the poem written by the poet at his study-table, although he may style it a ballad, belongs to literature. In the same way a proverb which is on a thousand lips belongs to folk-lore, while an apophthegm, although almost identical in form, belongs to literature. On these grounds I strongly object to any such term as folk-literature. With regard to the other terms I will not now remark further.

If Mr. Nutt will carry out the idea which he expresses in relation to comparative mythology, he will perhaps be nearer a satisfactory definition. He writes,—"All or nearly all the facts of comparative mythology are to be found in folk-belief in solution; a great many facts of folk-belief are to be found in comparative mythology crystallised." In point of fact, nothing comparative can really be folk-lore, and here I think it necessary to call attention to the title itself. Anthropology is the science which relates to man; biology is the science which relates to life; but folk-lore can scarcely be called a science at all, for it is the thing itself. One of the chief objects of the collection and arrangement of the facts of folk-lore is to generalise and philosophise, but the generalisations which we arrive at will not be folk-lore; and it is a question whether we have not, in addition to defining folk-lore and naming its sub-divisions, to find a name for the science which is being formed by the many enthusiastic workers who are now banded together as folk-lorists.

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As my letter in answer to Mr. Nutt must stand over for want of space, I would just observe that I cannot agree with him that folk-lore