Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/169

Rh sometimes for that very reason living and powerful, because capable of changing from age to age.

The name of the third group—Folk-poesy, consisting of stories, songs, and sagas—is open to very similar objections. First, it would take ordinary minds some time to grasp the idea that they should place prose-matter under the head of poetry, or "poesy," a word which suggests a motto for a ring rather than anything more important. Secondly, to call Folk-tales "poesy," is not only using the word in a somewhat unusual sense, but it begs the question of their origin and true significance, which is certainly not settled yet, and perhaps never will be. Whereas "tradition" describes the contents of the division equally well, and yet asserts nothing at out them but the one incontrovertible fact that they are traditional.

Mr. Stuart-Glennie draws, as no one else has done, the needful distinction between the classification of the record of Folk-lore (as he aptly calls it), made by the collector, and the classification of the results of the investigation to be made by the philosopher. The result he looks for is psychological only, viz., the thorough comprehension of Folk-beliefs, Folk-passions, and Folk-traditions. But surely he makes a mistake when he states the result he looks for first, and then frames the classification of the record upon that foundation, which is rather like giving the verdict first and hearing the evidence afterwards. Had he not done so, but had looked at the materials of the record first, and classified them on their own merits, surely he must have seen that Folk-lore has more to tell us than he supposes. Consider the weighty words of Senor Antonio Machado y Alvarez (Journal, vol. iii. p. 107): "Every branch of knowledge that we call scientific has been Folk-loric in its origin;" words which, in my poor opinion, give us in a nutshell both the reason of the value of the study, and the true test of what is and what is not within its