Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/275

Rh then, and they went home, and the master had a fine appetite when he reached the house.

He married John and the daughter together, and so they are still I myself only received as a remuneration brogues of thick milk, stockings of paper, and trousers of otterskin.

THE SCIENCE OF FOLK-LORE.

MAY I be allowed to call attention to a point which seems to have escaped notice? I mean, Mr. Wheatley's remark (Journal, vol. ii. p. 347) that "folk-lore is the unwritten learning of the people," that it is not the science which treats of that learning, but "the thing itself." Not the science, but the subject for scientific study. As the earth is not a science, but geology is: as language (pace Professor Max Müller) is not a science, but philology is; as myths are not a science, but mythology is; as man is not a science, but anthropology is; so folk-lore is not a science, but the study of folk-lore is;—and, so far, it is a study without a technical name. It seems to me that a great deal of confusion of thought, and discussion and misunderstanding arises from our trying to make one word do double duty, and using "folk-lore" to stand for both "the thing itself" and the science which deals with it.

Then on another point: viz., whether folk-lore can, or cannot, originate in the present day, may I contribute a bit of evidence, in the shape of an extract from the report in the Guardian of Sept. 3rd, 1879, of Mr. E. B. Tylor's speech in the Anthropological section of the meeting of the British Association at Sheffield.

"That myth-making is a real process of the human mind he (Mr. Tylor) showed by an amusing instance of what occurred the other day in Germany:—