Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/15

 Rh come to consider the next class—hero-tales. These are such as Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Hamtun, and the stories of the Welsh Mabinogion. Of the same original form as the folk-tale, they have become associated with the names of some historical or semi-historical personage; and hence, history having entered into the domain of folk-lore has affected it and altered it. Some of the adventures in the hero-tales are identical with the adventures in the folk-tales, but they do not possess the same surroundings and are not preceded and followed by the same events. Again, some of the formulae obtainable from the folk-tales reappear in the narrative of the hero-tales; but they are surrounded by and worked into other events and characters which prevent them being classed under the more simple class of folk-tales.

2. Traditional Customs. The second radical group into which folk-lore may be conveniently divided is that relating to customs. These are local customs, festival customs, ceremonial customs and games.

Local customs are frequently very extraordinary, and have sometimes been preserved only at one or two places. But they are none the less valuable to the folk-lorist on this account; for it may be that some particular local circumstance has affected the practice of the custom and kept it alive, while, in other places, it has died out. Local custom is apt to shade off into local law, and as soon as we find this to be the case folk-lore loses its claim. But it is instructive to find examples of a local custom which in some places owes its observance to the popular will, and, in other places, to the local law. We here get hold of a transitional form of folk-lore which helps us to grasp the true value of much that folk-lore has to teach us; because we may assume that the custom is older than the law, and that hence folk-lore has contributed to the laws of the land. If we find a custom performed in only one place, it may be, of course, assumed that it is something special and peculiar to the locality; but it is the duty of the folk-lorist to search for parallels, and not to give up the search until something definite is known about the origin of the custom. Many local customs can by this means be brought into the domain of history, and, therefore, taken out of the category of