THE STORIES 3 



stories believed in as recording actual events. 

 Between these two classes there is often no clear line 

 of demarcation. Especially in the lowest stages of 

 culture it is often difficult to say whether a story is 

 regarded as a narrative of facts or not. In either case 

 we expect to find marvels. In either case the realm in 

 which the personages of the story live and move and 

 have their being is beyond the realm of nature as we 

 understand it. It is a fantastic world where magic 

 reigns, where shape-shifting is an ordinary incident ; 

 but it is the world in which the savage dwells. For 

 him it is hardly too much to say the laws of nature do 

 not exist : everything depends on the volition and the 

 might of beings conceived, whatever their outward 

 form, in the terms of his own consciousness. In such 

 a world events happen that we know to be impossible. 

 The conviction of their impossibility however is 

 arrived at only gradually ; and not until intellectual 

 evolution has reached a much higher stage can we 

 distinguish with certainty between the marchen and 

 the saga. Even then when marvels are rejected 

 as matters of everyday occurrence they are often 

 held to have occurred in exceptional persons, and 

 they form the subject of many a saga sacred or 

 profane. * 



In this brief account of the stories therefore I shall 

 confine myself in the main to those I have called 

 sagas. They are as widespread as the marchen ; they 

 rest upon the same foundation ; they result from the 

 same view of the universe ; many of them are a part 

 of the religious tradition of the peoples who tell them. 

 I hope the selection which follows will present typical 

 specimens and enable the reader to judge of the world- 



