in consequence to be classed as mere specimens of popular ignorance. But the difficulties in the way of getting all this accepted by the historian are many, and, again, not a few of them are the creation of the folklorist himself. Not only has he neglected to classify and arrange the scattered items of custom, belief, and rite, and to ascertain the degree of association which the scattered items have with each other, but he has set about the far more difficult and complex task of comparative study without having previously prepared his material.

The historian and the folklorist are thus brought face to face with what is expected from both, in order that each may work alongside of the other, using each other's materials and conclusions at the right moment and in the right places. The folklorist has the most to do to get his results ready, and to explain and secure his position. He has been wandering about in a somewhat inconsequential fashion, bent upon finding a mythos where he should have sought for a persona or a locus, engaged in an extensive quest after parallels when he should have been preparing his own material for the process of comparative science, seeking for origins amidst human error when he should have turned to human experience. He has to change all this waywardness for systematic study, and this will lead him in the first place to disengage from the results hitherto obtained those which may be accepted and which may form the starting-point for future work. But his greatest task will be the reconsideration of former results and the rewriting of much that has been written on the wrong lines, and when this is done we shall have the historian and folklorist meeting together in the spirit which Edmund Spenser so finely and truly described three centuries ago in his treatment of Irish history: "I do herein rely upon those bards or Irish chronicles ... but unto them besides I add mine own reading and out of them both together with comparison of times likewise of manners and customs, affinity of words and manner, properties of natures and uses, resemblances of rites and ceremonies, monuments of churches and tombs and many other like circumstances I do gather a likelihood of truth, not certainly affirming anything, but by conferring of times language monuments and such like I do hunt out a probability of things which I leave to your judgment to believe or refuse."[10]

I shall of course not be able to undertake either of these tasks. I shall attempt, however, to indicate their scope and importance; and as a preliminary to the consideration of the definite departments into which the subject falls, it is advisable, I think, to test the relationship of tradition to history by means of one or two illustrations. It may be that the illustrations I shall give are not accepted by all students, that some better illustration is forthcoming by further research. This is one of the drawbacks from which tradition suffers, and must suffer, until our studies are much further advanced than they are at present. But I am glad to accept this possibility of error as part of the case for the study of tradition, because the error of one student cannot be held to disqualify the whole subject. It only amounts to saying that the particular fact which seems to me to be discoverable in the examples dealt with has to be surrendered in favour of another particular fact. My conclusions may be dismissed, but that which is not dismissible is the discoverable fact, and it is only when the true fact is discovered in each traditional item that previous inferences may be neglected or ignored and inquiry cease.[11]

I

The evidence of historic events which enter into tradition relates principally to the earliest periods, but much of it relates to periods well within the domain of history and yet reveals facts which history has either hopelessly neglected or misinterpreted. We shall find that these facts, though frequently relating to minor events, often have reference to matters of the highest national importance, and perhaps nowhere more definitely is this the case than in the legends connected with particular localities. Of one such tradition I will state what a somewhat detailed examination tells in this direction. It will, I think, serve as a good example of the kind of research that is required in each case, and it will illustrate in a rather special manner the value of these traditions to history.

The locus of the legend centres round London Bridge. The earliest written version of this legend is quoted from the MSS. of Sir Roger Twysden, who obtained it from "Sir William Dugdale, of Blyth Hall, in Warwickshire, in a letter dated 29th January, 1652-3." Sir William says of it that "it was the tradition of the inhabitants as it was told me there," and Sir Roger Twysden adds of it that: "I have since learnt from others to be most true." This, therefore, is a very respectable origin for the legend, and I will transcribe it from Sir William Dugdale's letter which begins "the story of the Pedlar of Swaffham-market is in substance this":—