Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/24

16 :::(b) Items for which there are no parallels in civilized folk-lore, and which thus remain the special heritage of savage life.

There are, of course, many points in connection with the subject which I have not attempted to touch upon at present. Whnt I have done will not, I hope, be considered dogmatic; because I am willing to give way upon any point where I may be shown to have gone wrong. One most important subject I should like to have dealt with, namely, the influence of literature upon folk-lore. In one sense folk-lore can lay claim to possessing the grandest book of the world, the Iliad and Odyssey, the Vedas, much of the Bible. But the folk-lore enshrined in these grand literary sources is dead—not alive as true folk-lore is and must be. We must be careful, therefore, in dealing with the dead folk-lore of classical Greece not to use it in the same way as we do the living folk-lore of savage peoples. It has become fossilised. But on these questions, and many others, I forbear now to touch, because they deserve distinct treatment. I can only hope that, before the year is out, it may be possible to issue a properly authorised Introduction to the Science of Folk-Lore. I must thank Mr. Nutt and Mr. Clodd for kindly reading over these notes.

G. L. Gomme.

NORTH INDIAN PROVERBS.

WHEN I was asked to undertake the editing of Dr. Fallon's posthumous work, A Dictionary of Hindustáni Proverbs, I found that the work was practically compiled, and so far complete that I did not feel justified in adding to it. In the edition therefore under publication I have merely contented myself with testing each rendering, a work which has involved the retranslation of nearly every proverb in this huge collection. Dr. Fallon, though unrivalled as a collector, was a bad translator; and, as is well known, persisted in his style of translation against all advice.