Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/109

 Rh careful use of the words spell and charm, which are very often confounded together, will be needed here. I fully enter into all that Mr. Gomme says, of not overloading the section on witchcraft with an account of all the superstitious ceremonies used by witches and charmers. For instance, the divining-rod and the rowan-tree talisman ought to be placed with Superstitions (concerning plants). But when all had been done in this direction that could be done, I think some few curious incantations and divinations would still remain, which could nowhere else be so conveniently treated of.

Class d would contain beliefs and (minor) practices concerning material things or natural objects, as the sun, moon, and stars, fire, water, weather, metals, plants, animals, the human body, disease, and the like. Divination and folk-medicine are so closely connected with witchcraft on one side, and with animal and plant-lore on the other, that the treatment of these sections will perhaps require more nice discrimination than any.

From the folk-lore collector's point of view, the exchange of places between "Superstition" and "Custom" would be an advantage, because it would lessen the breach of continuity involved in passing from one subject to another, and thus would promote a consecutive instead of a jerky tone. "Place Legends" would lead naturally to "Goblindom": " Superstitious Practice," to Customs "; "Games," to "Rhymes, Riddles," &c.

I am tempted to take exception to the name of ''Group IV. Folk-speech''. This compound is already in use by philologists to signify the dialect spoken by the folk, in contradistinction to the literary dialect of the same language. We can hardly therefore saddle it with a new and distinct meaning. I would suggest "Folk-sayings " as the title of the group. This name would not cover Class b, " Popular Nomenclature "; but then I would not have a class of Popular Nomenclature at all! It seems to me that it would be a hotch-potch, a miscellaneous list, with no natural connexion, no raison d'être. Such names as Robin Hood's Chair, Boggart Ho' Clough, Moot Hill, &c. are not so much valuable in themselves as for the evidence they afford of the popular belief or popular custom which occasioned them. I think a collector would do well to record Robin Hood's Chair under Hero