17 



have counterparts elsewhere, they will have rendered a signal service to 

 science, and produced incontrovertible testimony of the unity of the human 

 mind and the unintermittent force of the laws which govern it. 



Alike for the purpose of ascertaining the specific distinctions of culture 

 and the influences of neighbouring nations and neighbouring civilisations, 

 an accumulation of facts , is the prime requisite. If we have reason to 

 believe in the persistence of tradition, we shall have confidence that relics 

 will be discovered in our midst of the faith and institutions of our remoter 

 ancestors ; and, in accordance as we venerate antiquity or desire to pre- 

 serve what remains of the past, we shall hasten to collect them. Nor can 

 we be too quick in so doing. The blood of our forefathers is a permanent 

 inheritance, which it would take many generations and a large interming- 

 ling of foreigners seriously to dilute, much less to destroy. But tradition 

 is rapidly dying. It is dwindling away before the influences of modern 

 civilisation. Formerly, when the rural districts were isolated, when news 

 travelled slowly and nobody thought of leaving his home save to go to the 

 nearest market, and that not too often, when education did not exist for 

 the peasantry and tlie landowners had scarcely more than a bowing ac- 

 quaintance with it, the talk by the fireside on winter evenings was of the 

 business of the day — the tilling, the crops, the kine. Or it was the gossip 

 and small scandals interesting to such a community, or reminiscences by 

 the elders of the past. Thence it would easily glide into tales and super- 

 .stitions. And we know that tlaese tales and superstitions were, in fact, 

 the staple of conversation among our fathers and generally throughout the 

 West of Europe, to go no further afield, down to a very recent period ; 

 and they still are in many districts. In England, however, railways, 

 newspapers, elementary education, politics, and the industrial movements 

 which have developed during the present century have changed the ancient 

 modes of life ; and the old traditions are fading out of memory. The 

 generation that held them is fast passing away. The younger generation 

 has never cared to learn them ; though, of course, many of the minor 

 superstitions and sayings have still a considerable measure of power, espe- 

 cially in the shape of folk-medicine and prescriptions for luck. "We must 

 make haste, therefore, if we desire to add to the scanty information on 

 record concerning English folklore. 



As a starting-point for the collection of Gloucestershire folklore I put 

 together, a year or two ago, the folklore in Atkyns, Rudder, and the first 

 four volumes of Gloucestershire Notes and Queries ; and it was printed by 

 the Folklore Society and issued as a pamphlet.^ Other works remain to 

 be searched ; and it is probable that a good deal more may be found already 

 in print, if some who are intei-ested in the antiquities of the country will 

 undertake the not very arduous, but very necessary, labour of collection. 

 When all is gathered, however, it will only be a small part of what must 

 have existed at no distant date — if not of what still exists, awaiting dili- 

 gent inquiry among living men and women. How to set about the in- 

 quiry is a question that must be left very much to the individual inquirer 

 to answer. Valuable practical hints are given in the Handbook of Folklore, 

 a small volume that may be bought for half-a-crown and carried in the 

 pocket. Confidence between the collector and those from whom he is 

 seeking information is the prime necessity. Keep your notebook far in 



^' County Folklore. Printed Estracts — No.l, GloucestersJiire. London : D. Nut t, 

 1892. 1«. 



