tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">183

 

This is reproduced from the very excellent reprint (1883) of this remarkable book, published originally in 1581. The whole book is historically valuable as showing the undeveloped nature of Irish culture. The flesh was boiled in the hide, the fire is lighted in the open camp, and the entire rudeness of the scene depicts the people "whose usages I behelde after the fashion there sette downe."

  19. Long Meg and her Daughters (from a photograph by Messrs. Frith) 193 20. Stone Circles on Stanton Moor (from Archæologia) 193  

Nos. 19 and 20 are illustrations of two of the lesser-known circles about which the people hold such curious beliefs.

  21. Chinese representation of Pygmies going about arm-in-arm for mutual protection (from Moseley's Notes by a Naturalist on H.M.S. Challenger, by permission of Mr. John Murray) 242 22. Semang of Kuala Kenering, Ulu Perak (from Skeat and Blagden's Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, by permission of Messrs. Macmillan) 242 23. Negrito Type: Semang of Perak (from the same) 243 24. Semang of Kedah having a meal (from the same) 244 25. Tree Hut, Ulu Batu, about twelve miles from Kuala Lumpur, Selangor (from the same) 298  

The old-world traditions and the scientific observation of pygmy people are illustrated in No. 21 and Nos. 22-25 respectively. Though much has been written about the Pygmies, Messrs. Skeat and Blagden's account of the Semang people is by far the most thorough and important.

  26. Rite of Baptism on the Font at Darenth, Kent (from Romilly Allen's Early Christian Symbolism) 324  

The crude paganism on the sculptured stone is confirmatory of the pagan elements preserved in custom, and this illustration from Kent, one of the earliest centres of Christianity in Britain, is singularly interesting from this point of view.

  27 and 28. Two Scenes from the Anglo-Saxon Life of St. Guthlac by Felix of Crowland, depicting the attack of the Demons 351, 352  

These two plates belong to a series of eight which illustrate the life of the saint. They are less primitive in form than the story which they illustrate. By contrast with the remaining six, however, which are purely ecclesiastical in character, they show how this early episode kept its place among the events of the saint's life.

 

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PREFACE

If I have essayed to do in this book what should have been done by one of the masters of the science of folklore—Mr. Frazer, Mr. Lang, Mr. Hartland, Mr. Clodd, Sir John Rhys, and others—I hope it will not be put down to any feelings of self-sufficiency on my part. I have greatly dared because no one of them has accomplished, and I have so acted because I feel the necessity of some guidance in these matters, and more particularly at the present stage of inquiry into the early history of man.

I have thought I could give somewhat of that guidance because of my comprehension of its need, for the comprehension of a need is sometimes half-way towards supplying the need. My profound belief in the value of folklore as perhaps the only means of discovering the earliest stages of the psychological, religious, social, and political history of modern man has also entered into my reason for the attempt.

Many years ago I suggested the necessity for guidance, and I sketched out a few of the points involved (Folklore Journal, ii. 285, 347; iii. 1-16) in what was afterwards called by a friendly critic a sort of grammar of folklore. The science of folklore has advanced far since 1885 however, and not only new problems but new ranges of thought have gathered round it. Still, the claims of folklore as a definite section of historical material remain not only unrecognised but unstated, and as long as this is so the lesser writers on folklore will go on working in wrong directions and producing much mischief, and the historian will judge of folklore by the criteria presented by these writers—will judge wrongly and will neglect folklore accordingly.

I hope this book may tend to correct this state of things to some extent. It is not easy to write on such a subject in a limited space, and it is difficult to avoid being somewhat severely technical at points. These demerits will, I am sure, be forgiven when considered by the light of the human interest involved.

All studies of this kind must begin from the standpoint of a definite culture area, and I have chosen our own country for the purpose of this inquiry. This will make the illustrations more interesting to the English reader; but it must be borne in mind that the same process could be repeated for other areas if my estimate of the position is even tolerably accurate. For the purpose of this estimate it was necessary, in the first place, to show how pure history was intimately related to folklore at many stages, and yet how this relationship had been ignored by both historian and folklorist. The research for this purpose had necessarily to deal with much detail, and to introduce fresh elements of research. There is thus produced a somewhat unequal treatment; for when illustrations have