39° SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— H. 



Dr. E. Wilson. — The folk-tale in Westmorland and North Lancashire 

 (n. 10). 



The area : South Westmorland and Cartmel. Influence of system of 

 tenure on social life. Small-holders and hard-workers. Changes last 

 century — enclosures and growth of estates. More recent changes, decline 

 of industries and local life. 



Traditional amusements: dances, songs, tales. Hunting songs still 

 sung. References in local books, singing competitions at Winster and 

 Eskdale. Former popularity of chap-books (cf. Wordsworth and Briggs). 

 Competitions in telling riddles. Parties where each guest must sing a song 

 or tell a tale. Tales still told, though they are now dying out. Influence 

 of the dialect in preserving tales. 



Humorous tales. The daft man in the daft village. The man who makes 

 an object that is too big to be got out of his workshop. Gotham. Hazel 

 Grove near Stockport ; folk use of modern conditions, and tales circulated 

 by troops in the Great War. The inhabitants of Barrowdale (Cumberland) 

 — early version of Cuckoo story in Briggs. Modern version. Degeneration 

 in story. 



Effect of chap-books. Modern parallel of dialect pamphlets. Story of 

 the three foreigners in chap-book and from the folk. Modern version 

 again deteriorated. 



Story of Farmer and his wife — Poggio. No degeneration. 



King John and the Abbot. Old tale but modern conditions. Tales 

 likely to die out because of modern conditions. Necessity of collecting 

 now. 



Mr. S. O.Duilearga. — The work of the Irish Folklore Commission (11.45). 



In April 1935, the Irish Folklore Commission was set up by the Irish 

 Free State Government to collect oral traditions of the Irish people still 

 remaining in both Irish and English. The Commission inherited from the 

 Irish Folklore Institute 50,000 pages of manuscript material, and the nucleus 

 of a Folklore Reference Library. 



Through the courtesy of University College, Dublin, the Commission's 

 headquarters is in the University building. 



A great reservoir of tradition is in the Gaeltacht. Here are storytellers 

 with unbroken tradition from the Middle. Ages possessed of amazing 

 repertoires of tales and songs, and imbued with an outlook completely 

 untouched by the Machine Age. To save and preserve these traditions, six 

 full-time collectors have been appointed and equipped with recording 

 apparatus, and four more will shortly be appointed. Records and note- 

 books are sent to headquarters to be catalogued and preserved. 



The Commission also has correspondents all over the country collecting 

 materials in leisure hours. Notebooks have been issued by the Director 

 of Education to 6,000 Primary Teachers throughout the Free State. These 

 are catalogued and stored, and will provide a general survey of the whole 

 country. 



All material which will throw light on the social life of the Irish people 

 in the past is also being collected. In 1935 Dr. Campbell (Upsala) and 

 Mr. Nilsson (Lund) made a survey of house types, modes of agriculture, 

 fishing, etc. Hundreds of plots, plans, and sketches were made, and have 

 been stored. 



The headquarters of the Commission and the Reference Library are open 

 to students and scholars. 



