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With each passing year the need of a comprehensive classification of the materials in all kinds of traditional narrative becomes more apparent. Our great libraries of folklore, enriched by the ceaseless activity of field workers and scholars, grow daily more difficult to explore. Tales, ballads, myths, and traditions have poured in from all parts of the earth, both civilized and uncivilized, so that no man, however great his industry and skill in languages, can read the thousands of volumes in a lifetime. By a careful division of labor, scholars have, however, examined many parts of this field, with the result that the body of writings about traditional narrative also grows beyond the compass of one man's mastery.

That some kind of systematic indexing of this vast accumulation should be undertaken has been long realized. Though several beginnings of such a work have been made during the past century, no plan has been completed with sufficient thoroughness to warrant general acceptance.

For the special field of the folktale, to be sure, the classification of Antti Aarne has been found useful. In this index some eight hundred complete stories current in Europe have been logically arranged, and by its system the tales of more than a dozen European peoples have now been catalogued. For the European area such an arrangement of tales as Aarne's proves reasonably satisfactory, since popular traditions assume much the same pattern throughout, and the same narrative-complexes are found over much of the continent.