Portal:The Folk-Lore Society

“ So threatening was the appearance of the heavens to windward that all hands stayed on deck to see what was coming. Right aft we perceived an inky mass of cloud rising from the horizon. It had huge rugged black streaks diverging from it in all directions like the claws or arms of some great monster crab or polypus. Bigger and bigger the threatening mass swelled, and the evil-looking arms stretched half round the horizon to the zenith, as if the monster was about to enclose the whole world in its grasp—a wonderful and awful appearance. ”

“ At once a cloud obscures the sun (no matter how clear the day may be) , everything darkens, a gentle shower falls, and from the houses comes a faint sound of women weeping and murmuring the names of departed relatives; a rustling noise strikes the ears of the hushed and kneeling warriors; the chief pauses, then breaks into a song lauding the virtues of those departed. With a shout the warriors spring up, the women rush out, and all join together in extolling the deeds of those who have vanished from the ranks of the living. ”

“ There is no phenomenon without a cause; but in the immense complexity of historical record it is not always easy to detect the true cause, and to trace its growth and working until the result delights us. Let us consider to-night if we may find out why the fairy note rings so perfectly throughout that literature of modern England which has its roots in and which derives the best of its life's blood from the wonderful half-century: 1580- 1630. Reasons, causes must exist, nor—let me here forestall a possible objection—do we wrong genius by seeking to discover them. ”

“ As appears from the teaching of comparative mythology, his prototypes during the darkest days of nature-worship represented the incarnation of vegetative energy. They were the earthly substitutes of the deity to whom men owed the corn which they ate, the grass devoured by their cattle, and the trees which yielded them fuel, building-timber, and countless other necessaries of life, the confederate—or perhaps the secondary aspect—of that great sun-god, whose power after waning from the joyous days of midsummer, began to wax again when midwinter was passed. ”

“ As the earth is not a science, but geology is: as language (pace Professor Max Müller) is not a science, but philology is; as myths are not a science, but mythology is; as man is not a science, but anthropology is; so folk-lore is not a science, but the study of folk-lore is;—and, so far, it is a study without a technical name. It seems to me that a great deal of confusion of thought, and discussion and misunderstanding arises from our trying to make one word do double duty, and using "folk-lore" to stand for both "the thing itself" and the science which deals with it. ”

“ Science is not an inscription on a tombstone. To collect the remnants of the past in order to enshrine them in some beautifully adorned cases would be to miss entirely the aim and object of true study and scientific investigation. The real aim, on the contrary, must be to make the past a stepping-stone to the future, a mirror which is held up to us in which to see the virtues and the vices, the greatness and the smallness, the attempts and the failures, so as to shun the one and follow the other. The science of Folklore does not fall short of this expectation. ”

“ I am no human being. I am the chief of the salmon, the divine fish. As you seemed in danger of dying in the waves, I drew you to me and saved your life. You thought you only stayed with me one night. But in truth that night was a whole year. When it was ended, I sent you back to your native place. So I shall be truly grateful if henceforth you will offer rice-beer to me, set up the divine symbols in my honour, and worship me with the words 'I make a libation to the chief of the salmon, the divine fish.' If you do not worship me, you will become a poor man. ”

“ It is the privilege of English literature to enshrine utterances of countless races of men which otherwise must wholly perish, to make them part of the world's thought and fancy. This privilege is, I think, most likely to be realised by the folklorist, who, if he have really penetrated to the inmost sanctum of our study, will have learned to grasp the manifold links that bind us to the remotest past, to sympathise with the rudest and most infantile manifestations of human energy, and to recognise in the formless germ the source of what may be mightiest and most beautiful in human effort. ”

“ Nothing can be truer than this way of judging the observance of the Rite of May, Whatever might be the foolishness that it led to here and there, its origin lay always in pure satisfaction at the returned glory of the earth; in the wish to establish a link that could be seen and felt—if only that of holding a green bough or of wearing a daffodil crown—between the children of men and the new and beautiful growth of nature. ”

“ There can be no doubt that much of the popular literature of to-day—in the widest sense of the word—was the literature of the upper classes of the preceding centuries, remodelled by the people in accordance with the innate instincts and dispositions of each nation. The elements surging up from the depth of antiquity meet newer elements coming down from above, and so shape and mould popular taste and popular feeling. They are the food for the hungry soul of the masses, eager to raise itself from the lower level of ignorance to a higher poetical contemplation. ”

“ Is it too much to say that the coal, which is nothing but a kind of temporary transformation of the forests of old, has retained under its black cover all the beauty of the forests, of their flowers and of their bloom, and now, when it has passed through the fire retort, and has been condensed in the black tar, the colours of ancient times come again to light? This is absolutely typical of Folklore and of our Society. ”

“ It is the pretty Welsh lad that runs all in my mind,
A poor distressed lady, a Welsh lad to my mind.
"An old man I do disdain, his wealth and all his store,
O give to me my plough-boy, and I desire no more.
He's the flower of this country, a diamond in my eye.
It is for the pretty Welsh lad that I for love must die. ”

“ Bunting is bunting, but the flag is a nation's pride and hope. But associations are of slow growth. The symbols of a people cannot be replaced suddenly, any more than stately trees can be replaced by saplings. Indeed, wholesale deforestation may be the prelude to utter ruin of the land. Thus in the garden of literature it is well to deal tenderly with venerable timber, though it stand, not in tidy rows, but wherever nature planted it. Even so, then, let us be tender with the old themes embodied in our national folklore. ”

“ A widow's son takes service with a monster-magician of kindly nature, who dwells in a forest. As a reward for fidelity the magician gives him gold and a dove, who is in fact an enchanted maiden capable of being restored to human form by plucking forth three golden feathers wherewith she is adorned. The magician directs him to hide these feathers where none shall know. The hero takes the dove-maiden home, weds her, and, like Aladdin, builds a palace, hiding in its walls, in a place only known to his mother, the three precious feathers. ”

“ Folk-lore, in my opinion, from one point of view, embraces the whole of life and all the sciences, and is, in its turn, a phase or aspect of them all. To explain myself: Every branch of knowledge which we call scientific has been folk-loric in its origin, and perhaps continues to be so in a very small degree. Since, in fine, human reason and intellect are the media of knowledge, and, from the fact that all men are endowed with intellect and reason, the people, which is an aggregation of men, has some knowledge, more or less imperfect, of all things. ”

“ I believe that the fairy creed, this ancient source of inspiration, of symbolic interpretation of man's relation to nature, is not yet dried up, and that English literature, with its mixed strain of Teutonic and Celtic blood, with its share in the mythologies of both these races, and in especial with its claim to the sole body of mythology and romance, the Celtic, which grew up wholly unaffected by classic culture, is destined to drink deeply of it in the future as in the past, and to find in it the material for new creations of undying beauty. ”

“ This order of characteristics is, I make little doubt, what would occur to most well-read Englishmen, and denotes what impressed the fancy of Shakespeare's contemporaries and of the afterworld. The fairy community with its quaintly fantastic parody of human circumstance; the minute size and extreme swiftness of the fairies, which insensibly assimilate them in our mind to the winged insect world—these traits would strike us at first blush; only on second thoughts should we note their share in the life of nature, should we recall their sway over its benign and malign manifestations. ”

“ In the end, as has been seen, March gets an ill-word from the Greek folk-singer, who is not more constant in his praise of April. It is the old fatality which makes the Better the Enemy of the Good.
May is coming, May is coming, comes the month so blithe and gay;
April truly has its flowers, but all roses bloom in May;
April, thou accurst one, vanish I Sweet May-month I long to see;
May fills all the world with flowers, May will give my love to me.
May is pre-eminently the bridal month in Greece ”

“ We first meet the mediaeval fairy in works of the Arthur cycle; as ladies of the lake and fountain, as dwellers in the far-off island paradise of Avalon, as mistresses of or captives in mysterious castles, the enchantments of which may be raised by the dauntless knight whose guerdon is their love and never-ending bliss, these fantastic beings play a most important part in the world of dream and magic haze peopled by Arthur and his knights and their lady loves. If an instance be needed how vital is the connection between Arthur and Faery, it is furnished by the romance of Huon of Bordeaux. ”

“ It would hardly seem accurate to define biology as a science of survivals, yet it would be as accurate to do so as to define folk-lore in such terms. The one is just as much and as little a science of survivals as the other. Both have to do with survivals, but both reason beyond them.
Civilisation has grown out of savagery; and because the phenomena of thought for which we seek are those of uncivilised men they live in Tradition. They elude the grasp of the historian; and, although social science finds in some of them a portion of her material, she treats them in her own way. ”

“ After twenty-nine days had passed, during which time he had rejoiced his son's heart, the prophet Elijah came and sat by the door of the lad, who immediately trembled, and said: "Why hast thou come here, old man?" He replied: "My son, I am Elijah who have come to tell thee good tidings." The lad, making obeisance to him, asked him: "What good tidings have you?" To which he replied: "To-morrow the angel of death will take thy soul, my son." The lad then said: "Is it not true, old man, that from the beginning of the world it has been so, that as soon as one's day comes he must die?" ”

“ Folk-lore can never be said to be running into mythology; though, on the contrary, mythology may be said to be perpetually running into folk-lore. It is only when mythology, displaced as a form of religion, becomes perpetuated as popular beliefs that it can be classed as folk-lore and placed side by side in that long category of manners and customs, superstitions and beliefs, old sayings and proverbs, legends and traditions, hero-tales and god-tales, which constitute the lore of the people. ”

“ The lad, then entering before the king, made obeisance to him, and said: "Long live the king! behold I am a young man in years, while all thy wise men are old; but God has given me knowledge and understanding to tell the king what he has buried in his heart; but it is not from me, but from God, who has revealed his secret to his servant. Now, my lord, O king, thou hast promised to give thy daughter and one half of thy kingdom to him who shall be able to tell thee, and all thy kingdom after thou hast departed this life." ”

“ And any one who has ears to hear can learn that the spirit of folk-lore is still vigorous among the folk. All that is wanted is a little guidance to call that spirit into renewed activity. Shall that guidance be lacking? Philosophy after philosophy rises and passes away, leaving no mark behind it; our moralists are discussing—and seem likely to go on discussing—whether or not we ought to be moral; but no one marks that the ancient tales which kept the morals of the folk sweet and pure are passing away, and that new ones are not filling up their place. ”

“ When rain clouds come up, it is Altjira walking through the sky—a good omen for mankind of a season of plenty. Altjira shows himself to man in the lightning; the thunder is his voice. If the lightning strikes anything, it is Altjira lighting a fire. When Altjira does not show himself (in the storm cloud) men have to suffer in a season of drought. Altjira is a good god; he never punishes man ”

“ By the prayer of Raja Donan all the troops of Raja Chamar Lant and Raja Petukal were restored to life, and his little boat was turned into a magnificent palace. He called all the restored warriors together, and, putting chiefs over them, he set out on his journey on foot, taking with him his sword and his magic flute. When on his way, a certain princess, named Linggam Chahya, who resided in heaven, but came down often to the earth to amuse herself, met and fell in love with him, and sent her favourite bird to ask him to come to see her. ”

“ These legends and customs may have been invented only in one place, but they have been disseminated throughout the world. The equality in mental disposition made it easy for other nations to appreciate the new-comers, and to adopt and adapt them, and then so to transform them that they become bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh.
Happily for mankind the spirit knows no boundaries. It recognises no barriers to its flight, and has no specific home of its own. It lives in the heart and mind of man. The spiritual achievements of one nation soon become the spiritual property of another nation. ”

“ I say, if you keep on the clean side of the road your boots don't get dirty, but if you go into the mud you can't brush it off. Come with me, and I'll take you where the moon shines in the day and the sun shines in the night, where the donkeys bark and the dogs all bray, and the dumb men speak and the blind men fight.
Are these the ravings of a maniac merely, or do they contain remnants of a folk-lore knowledge? ”

“ The nation can afford to recapture something of its primitive innocence. Two-thirds of education, it is said, are completed in the nursery. So let a nursery of the mind be created for the people out of the aesthetic tradition of the folk, which can be so readapted that all, whether hand-workers or brain-workers, may find nurture therein, as children are taught by playing.
Now our educational experts tell us that more science is the need of the time. It may be so; but more science must not mean less literature. Physical science by itself would but make us the slaves of a world-machine. ”

“ The king turned as pale as a sheet, and revealed the frightful secret to his son. "Don't cry, father!" replied the prince, "it isn't a great misfortune! I shall manage to force Bony to renounce the right over me, which he tricked out of you in so underhand a manner, and if in the course of a year I do not return it will be a token that we shall see each other no more." The prince prepared for his journey, the king gave him a suit of steel armour, a sword, and a horse, and the queen hung round his neck a cross of pure gold. ”

“ Only the study of the facts of human history can reveal how far material prosperity and righteousness go together; and these facts do not on the face of them tell a plain tale. It was no less a historian than Gibbon who returned the dubious verdict: "Every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race." ”

“ Koshchei, called "the immortal or deathless," is merely one of the many incarnations of the dark spirit which takes so many monstrous shapes in folk-tales. Sometimes his death—that is, the object with which his life is indissolubly connected—does exist within his body. In one story he carries off a queen, of whom her three sons go in search one after the other. The elder two did not return, so that the father was reluctant to part with Prince Ivan, the youngest, but at last gave him his blessing, and sent him on his sad errand. ”

“ Yet if we turn back to the poet of the Midsummer Night's Dream we can detect in his picture all the essentials of the fairy creed as it has appealed, and still appeals, to the faith and fancy of generations more countless than ever acknowledged the sway of any of the great world-religions, we can recover from it the elements of a conception of life and nature older than the most ancient recorded utterance of earth's most ancient races. ”

“ Not even the most practical science can be taught, unless the enthusiasm of the student is first roused and the scholar's imagination fired by some glowing picture of success or discovery. When we rear up the coming generation and establish our commonwealth, it is always imagination that precedes the practical deed. What would the world be without its poetry, without its beauty, Even utilitarianism cannot dispense with the help of imagination, and this gift of imagination is happily one of those in which the masses participate to a far larger extent than the so-called classes. ”

“ The poor mother began to tremble at hearing these words. "My son," she cried, "who has put this extravagant idea into your head? Your father never stirred from his home, and he has been the glory of his race. Where will you find a yard like the one you have? Where will you find a more magnificent dunghill, more nourishing and abundant food, a more sheltered hen-yard to walk about in, or a family that would love you more?"
"Nego" said Medio-pollito in Latin, for he plumed himself on his learning, "my brothers and cousins are ignorant bumpkins." ”

“ Now in the true ideal of imperialism, the only one which the scholar and the honest man would care to strive for, there are elements which can be apprehended rightly and vindicated by the folklorist alone. We claim already for our study that it enables us to reconstitute the early babblings of humanity; is it belittling it to point out that by its aid we may discern the true and permanent value of phases of thought, fancy, and character which are essential to the full development of humanity, but to which the study of civilised man alone may render us blind or indifferent? ”

“ However far we pursue it, the steadfast illusion keeps its distance, while shifting sands are about our feet as before. There never was a time, in short, when the interplay of old and new did not go on, exactly as it does now—when survival and revival, degeneration and regeneration, were not pulsating together in the rhythm of the social life. It is at least as necessary to read the present into the past as the past into the present. Let it, then, be an article of our creed to recognize the immanence of folklore. ”

“ Poisoning and healing have no element in common: neither have magic and religion. The intention and the spirit make the difference, the world of difference, between them—a difference as patent to the most primitive of peoples as it is to us. That the drug is obtained and administered in much the same way by poisoner and physician does not diminish the fundamental difference—the difference of purpose and intention—between the two. Between the murderer and the physician there is a difference. ”

“ I should like to go there to study for three years, after which time I will return to thee." His father replied; "What is the use of it, my son? Seeing that thou hast abundant riches, and considering the fact that I am old and do not know how soon the day of my death may come, besides which thy mother is also very aged. If we die, to whom shall we leave all these riches?" At this his son said: "I do not care for thy wealth, because in the hour of death neither silver, nor gold, nor precious stones, nor pearls are of any use, but study and the fact of having performed good deeds." ”