Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/52

 16 instance, it has stamped out the Tasmanians, leaving only one poor fragment of a native tale on record—or wipes from the memories of the others the rapidly-vanishing lines of their genuine traditions. Yet, as the number of stories increases, ever will the difficulty of dealing with them grow. This is a difficulty we in England, as you know, have proposed partly to overcome by careful analysis and tabulation. Our method was much discussed at the Paris Congress two years ago; and it is not entirely free from objection. We are hoping before long to issue a tabulation of all the accessible variants of the tale of Cinderella; and then, with a connected series of results before us, it will be possible to pronounce a definitive judgment on the merits and defects of the scheme.

But we may reasonably demand whether the time has not yet arrived when we may take stock of our museum of tales, and proceed to determine, provisionally, at all events, the questions that arise upon them. It is not enough to sort and classify: we must enquire what mean the stories thus laboriously gathered, whence did they spring, and what relation do they bear to one another and to the history of our race. I confess, for my part, that my interest in the science of folk-lore would come to naught unless I believed that the traditions alike of our fathers and of the other nations of the world contained, and might be made to yield up to the diligent enquirer, information of the utmost value concerning the primitive beliefs and practices of mankind, and, behind these, the very structure and development of the human mind. In the process of extracting this information the study of folk-tales must always bear an important part; for it is chiefly in tales that the speculative portions of a savage creed take shape. Something, and not a little, has been done in this direction since Grimm first showed the remains of ancient heathendom in the stories of his own land. His method has been more widely applied in recent years, by distinguished writers whom I need not name, to stories found in every region of the world; and conclusions in regard to the beliefs fundamental to all savage religions have been based in part upon them.

These applications have not been allowed to pass unchallenged. Literary men have contended that the true origin of folk-tales was to be found in India, that they were Buddhist parables, and that