FOLKLORE 



literature." It thus embraces the 

 whole outlook of uncultured man 

 upon the world, his beliefs concern- 

 ing his own nature and destiny, his 

 relation to other beings, whether 

 objective or imaginary, whether 

 human or non-human, the rites and 

 customs which are the outcome of 

 his beliefs and the expression of 

 these varied relations, and, finally, 

 the amusements of his vacant hours. 



The English use of the word 

 folklore does not include, as the 

 corresponding German word Yolks- 

 kunde does, the technology of the 

 arts and industries practised either 

 by the unlearned classes of civil- 

 ized peoples or by the uncivilized 

 or semi-civilized peoples of distant 

 regions. The English student of 

 folklore is concerned rather with the 

 non-technical rules which govern 

 the employment of implements, 

 and with the ceremonies and 

 taboos observed in relation to them, 

 for these reveal the deeper thoughts 

 of the community and the direc- 

 tion of its mental and spiritual life. 

 Old Devonshire Customs 



Folklore may be said to be the 

 deposit left by successive waves of 

 culture on the minds of the com- 

 munity. The record is usually far 

 too fragmentary to present any- 

 thing like a history. What is pre- 

 served is that which whether tale, 

 institution, rite, or custom has 

 most deeply entered into the popu- 

 lar mentality. At the village of 

 Holne, on Dartmoor, on May-morn- 

 ing before daybreak a ram-lamb 

 used to be hunted down by the 

 young men, fastened to a monolith, 

 killed, and roasted whole. At mid- 

 day a struggle took place for a slice 

 of the animal, which was supposed 

 to confer luck for the ensuing year 

 on the fortunate person who ate it. 



At King's Teignton, on Whit- 

 Monday, a lamb is drawn about 

 the parish in a cart covered with 

 garlands. On the following day it 

 is killed and roasted whole in the 

 middle of the village ; and slices 

 are sold to the poor at a cheap rate. 

 The custom is said to date back to 

 heathen days, and to owe its origin 

 to a drought, in which the inhabit- 

 ants prayed for water. Their 

 wants were supplied in answer to 

 the prayer by the bursting forth 

 of a spring, which even now is ade- 

 quate in a dry summer to work 

 three mills. The sacrifice of the 

 lamb is said to be a votive thank- 

 offering (Sir Laurence Gomme, 

 Ethnology in Folklore, 1892). 



In these two Devonshire cus- 

 toms it is impossible to avoid re- 

 cognizing a survival from very 

 ancient times of a sacrificial cere- 

 mony. It is a striking and pic- 

 turesque rite ; but from our point 

 of view this is by no means essen- 



3228 



tial to its preservation. Thousands 

 of traditional observances are of a 

 common-place character, some 

 even disgusting ; and it is difficult 

 to say what quality in them caused 

 them to survive. The prohibition, 

 for luck, to put both shoe and 

 stocking on one foot before the 

 stocking is put on the other, has no 

 striking or picturesque features, 

 but the importance it attaches to a 

 trifling detail in the order of dress- 

 ing indicates that it descends from 

 so remote a past that the original 

 reason seems undiscoverable. 



The belief that it is a bad omen 

 if a child do not cry at its baptism, 

 the prohibition in Scotland to give 

 fire out of the house on New Year's 

 Day, and many other precepts and 

 beliefs obviously derive their origin 

 from a much lower stage of culture. 

 Of such survivals it may very often 

 be said, in Sir Arthur Mitchell's 

 words, that " they show the "con- 

 tinuance among a people long 

 Christianised of ceremonies and 

 practices emphatically pagan." 

 Where they cannot be said to be 

 " emphatically pagan " they are 

 alien in spirit from modern thought. 



From time to time it has been 

 sought to disentangle and classify 

 such survivals, so as to show the 

 ethnic elements of which they are 

 composed. Thus, Sir Laurence 

 Gomme argued that the sacrifice 

 of the lamb in Devonshire was an 

 inheritance from a pre-Aryan 

 society and a pre-Aryan culture. 

 W. H. R. Rivers instituted an 

 elaborate inquiry into the different 

 strata of the institutions and cus- 

 toms obtaining in the Melanesian 

 islands of the South Pacific 

 (History of Melanesian Society, 2 

 vols., 1914). He arrived at some 

 very interesting results, but the 

 questions raised are so complex, 

 the influences are so numerous and 

 varied, and many of them so 

 hypothetical, that it cannot be 

 said that the possibility of assign- 

 ing the different elements of folk- 

 lore to their original ethnic 

 source has anywhere yet been 

 demonstrated. 



Folklore and the Historian 



The value of folklore as a record 

 of facts and of the succession of 

 events is much more limited. 

 Ancient historians for instance, 

 Herodotus necessarily relied to 

 a great extent on tradition. All 

 through the Middle Ages, and even 

 more recently, it was treated as 

 authoritative. Modern historians 

 have become more sceptical ; and 

 the untrustworthiness of oral tra- 

 dition, in comparison with the 

 more certain evidence of written 

 documents or the statements of 

 eye-witnesses, has been generally 

 regarded as axiomatic. 



FOLKLORE 



In the lower zones of culture, 

 however, documentary evidence of 

 events long past is, of course, un- 

 procurable. The evidence of tradi- 

 tion is the only direct evidence pos- 

 sible. In these circumstances some 

 anthropologists have been disposed 

 to rely on it for such matters 

 as the origin and migrations of a 

 people, the pedigree of its chiefs 

 and rulers, the beginnings of its 

 institutions, and the vicissitudes of 

 its history. 



Subjects of Tradition 



Careful examination shows that 

 this reliance is hardly justified. 

 Illiterate persons certainly develop 

 a greater strength of memory than 

 those who habitually depend on 

 books and written memoranda. 

 But both individuals and com- 

 munities differ widely in this 

 respect : all are not gifted alike. 

 Much depends, also, on the sub- 

 ject. Pedigrees may be remem- 

 bered because they appeal to the 

 vanity of a family, or because they 

 are important in relation to the 

 descent of property, or the head- 

 ship of a clan. The interest thus 

 aroused tends to preserve tradition. 

 On the other hand it almost in- 

 evitably deforms it. Whether it 

 be material prosperity, or only 

 pride in the doings of ancestors, or 

 the position of a family, what is 

 sure to be insisted on is the glory 

 and advantage of the carriers of 

 the tradition, and the depreciation 

 or the misdoings of their oppon- 

 ents ; and where there is no precise 

 record, there is no conclusive 

 answer to their claims. These are, 

 in a sense, private traditions. 



Where a tradition is not so closely 

 related to the interest of the in- 

 dividual, or of a close corporation, 

 it is liable to become less definite, 

 the details will be speedily for- 

 gotten, and though outstanding 

 facts will continue to be longer re- 

 membered, they will remain iso- 

 lated and unexplained. Ulti- 

 mately they will pass out of 

 memory, unless an effort to ex- 

 plain and account for them be 

 made. For this explanation the 

 imagination must be drawn on. 

 Without any real historical sense, 

 the story can only be reconsti- 

 tuted as the carriers of the tradi- 

 tion think it ought to have been, 

 in accordance with their ignorance, 

 their mental condition, and their 

 consequent sense of the fitness of 

 things. The result is a mere 

 travesty of the facts, and often- 

 times, indeed, is a complete 

 reversal of them. 



It might be thought that bare 

 lists of kings or genealogies would 

 be easily remembered by the aid 

 of a fair memory, and would lend 

 themselves but 'little to freaks of 



