Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/117

 of folk-tales which would be current in any specified division of the British Isles.

This geographical method of regarding the diffusion of folk-tales will be, I believe, of considerable archaeological value in the distant day when Darkest Africa shall be completely open to the European explorer. The tribes and nations of the interior, from all we learn, have little or no knowledge of their own past: they ought to be happy, for they have no history. But it is quite possible that a comparative study of the folk-tales among them may reveal unexpected points of contact of now distant races, and record migrations of which no other record exists. Let African explorers collect fetishes and customs of the natives. But let them also not neglect to put on record the tales with which they amuse their leisure hours.

And outside Africa the study of the problem of diffusion might serve to throw light upon many problems of folk-lore outside the office of the folk-tale. It may even turn out, if we solve the problem for folk-tales, we may solve it for customs, and indicate lines of transmission along which customs have spread from one race to another. Indeed, if a presumption be granted that similarity implies common origin, much of our present prehistoric research will have to be reconstituted. And even in historical research, the existence of a wide system of folk-transference which does not leave historic traces of intermediate links, may be of vital significance. This is the historical problem of the relations of Christianity to Buddhism; the chief difficulty lies in making such a presumption, which, if the views here expressed have any validity, need be no difficulty at all. In this instance the science of the folk-tale may have valuable aid to offer to theology.

Of course, in studying the diffusion of a fairy-tale, there are all manner of complications to be resolved before a definite solution can be reached. There has been so much mingling between the nations of Europe by travel, by intermarriage, by commercial