Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/347

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FROM the moment in which the general attention of scholars was directed to the treasures of the lore living among the people, theories were not wanting to explain the origin and importance thereof.

The fault inherent in every new undertaking, viz., of mixing the elements promiscuously, and attributing to every branch of the new study the same origin, was conspicuously felt in the new study of folk-lore. Once a theory was adopted, say for customs or myths, it was immediately applied to superstitions, tales, or charms, as if these were all of the same age, and derived from the same source. This general explanation is still in force, although, as I think each branch of folk-lore should be studied separately, endeavouring to prove the origin of each independently from the other; afterwards we may try to ascertain the relationship which exists between each. Thus a theory which holds good for superstition, is by no means fit for fairy-tales, &c. Just as our knowledge is a knowledge formed by many strata, one upon the other, so also the knowledge of the illiterate is not a homogenous element, but one which has been acquired during centuries, and it only appears to us to form one indivisible unity. There may be elements in folk-lore of hoar antiquity, and there may be on the other hand other elements relatively modern, which we can trace even to our own time, growing, so to say, under our own eyes, as, for instance, all the popular etymologies and the stories invented afterwards to explain them.

I thus entirely separate the inquiry into the origin of fairy-tales from all the other parts of folk-lore; the more so, as there is no more striking instance of quite opposite views and opinions, than those concerning their origin.

There is first, the mythological theory; then the theory of