Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/16

 8 Local customs, therefore, may be defined as— (a) originating in the popular will in some places, and, in other places, having become part of the local, i.e. manorial, law; (b) variations of well-ascertained folk-custom; (c) special to a particular place, and having an ascertained or ascertainable historical origin. The latter is of course not folk-lore.

Festival customs represent an exceedingly important branch of folk-lore. Just as in the case of local customs it has been ascertained that so long as a local custom is isolated in its peculiarity it cannot be admitted into the domain of folk-lore,—and that a purely folk-lore custom, locally observed, may, in course of time, become a part of local or manorial law,—so it is to be noted in the case of festival custom that so long as it is specialised under a particular festival of the Church it cannot be admitted into the domain of folklore, and that a custom observed at certain seasons of the year has gradually become incorporated into a recognised festival-custom of the Church. Thus the Church stands, with reference to festival customs, in the same relationship as the law stands with reference to local customs. To a folk-lorist, Church and law are the perpetual means of transforming folk-lore into religious observance or into legal action. Having enshrined folk-lore thus in their own surroundings it becomes difficult to recognise it, and much of it cannot, of course, be recognised; but when the stage of transition is still perceivable it is very often through the agency of the Church and the law that folklore has been preserved.

But the Church has done much more for festival customs than the law has done for local custom. In the early days of Christianity there was a fierce struggle with the still living and still healthy paganism of the hordes who conquered the Roman Empire. And the stern and necessary operation of getting rid of barbaric belief in order to make way for the humanising work of Christianity was not done without compromise. The Church taught that certain times were specially kept apart for religious observances; and the people, always loth to leave off the practices of their ancestors—always fearful of offending their old gods who had hitherto done so much for them or against them— answered this teaching by adding to the