Portal:The Folk-Lore Society

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ But youth and health did not last long, soon came sicknesses and sorrows, which tormented him by day and took away his rest by night. 'Die I shall not,' said he to himself, 'for Death will send his messengers before that, but I do wish these wretched days of sickness were over.' As soon as he felt himself well again he began once more to live merrily. ”

“ If you wish to dismiss a visitor without incurring the painful necessity of hinting that the visit is unwelcome, let some one quietly slip a pinch of salt into his galoshes, left outside the door, and immediately the unconscious guest resolves to depart: you may then with safety entreat him to prolong the pleasure of his society; nothing can withstand the subtle power that compels him to leave. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What god has deigned to beget a child in my daughter? Though he should deign to beget one, it would at least be well if he had begotten a human child. But this little snake we human beings cannot keep. As it is the child of the god who begot it, he may as well keep it. ”

“ The servants, alarmed by this, and the unearthly, fiendish yells that came from the banqueting hall, rushed upstairs, and there found the bodies of their master and mistress dead on the floor; and through the open window they saw, by the light of the moon which for a moment shone through a rift in the clouds, their souls borne away on the wings of a demon in the shape of a bird. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It had seemed to him as if the creature came out of his mouth, had crossed the burn by his comrade's help, and had gone out of sight in a cairn. The watcher (who had had time to follow the bee to the cairn just hid by a rising ground, and not more than two hundred yards off) laughed at the story, but the elder man said that it must be true, and declared his mind to seek the cairn and its contents. High words followed, and the younger, drawing his sword, slew the man who had dreamt the dream of gold. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The institutions of primitive man, from which sociology starts, are as much within the domain of folk-lore as his myths. Indeed the myths and legends of a people are frequently inexplicable apart from its laws and ceremonies. But sociology has mainly to do with history; it may be said to be a forward-looking, while folk-lore is a backward-looking, science. Sociology deals with the social environment and organisation of men, tracing these from their early forms along the lines of their development, and striving from every indication to divine the future of our species. ”

“ This is the philosophy which, I believe, lies at the heart of the Punchkin tales. The passage of the life-principle from princess or ogre to casket or to parrot is easy where imagination creates fellowship not only between man and brute but between man and lifeless things; while in the crediting of these with life, with power to change their form and nature, lies the germ of those more elaborate theories of transmigration and metempsychosis which have been developed among more or less civilised peoples. ”

“ In this view we do well, I think, on occasions when the members assemble, to take stock, as it were, and inquire to what larger result the labours of the student of folk-lore tend—what generalisations may be deduced from the evidence which he has collected. An attitude like this is possible only when we regard our mission as a serious one; when we recognise that there is some larger meaning than lies on the surface of the material, some deeper thought at the heart of it. So long as the folk-tale was looked upon as the vagrant of fancy, sober treatment of it was not possible. ”

“ Beware of the bear, the leopard, and the bulong snake. "Did not a wounded bear jump out on a traveller, nearly squeeze him to death, and, when the man fell, poked him about, at every sign of life again biting at him, till the victim, happily recovering his presence of mind, kept perfectly still, when the brute left?" "Cannot a leopard carry off a buffalo by twisting his tail round it?" And "Does not the bulong snake bear an eternal enmity to man since the day when, at the instigation of a Bangsuit family, the gods deprived him of the power of assuming human shape?" ”

“ Great Tom of Kentsham was the greatest bell ever brought to England, but it never reached Kentsham safely, nor hung in any English tower. Where Kentsham is I cannot tell you, but long, long ago the good folk of the place determined to have a larger and finer bell in their steeple than any other parish could boast. At that time there was a famous bell-foundry abroad, where all the greatest bells were cast, and thither the Kentsham people sent to order their famous bell, and thither too sent many others who wanted greater bells than could be cast in England. ”

“ Unless we admit a remarkable stability for tales and mythology alone (amidst the great and sweeping revolutions the nations of Europe underwent in the course of centuries) , and unless this unity of mythology is accounted for, the similarity, or, better, identity of fairy tales remains a puzzle.
But even admitting the unity of mythology, this could only serve to explain the fairy tales of the ancients, if we had any, which is not the case; whilst new nations arose in Europe out of the mixture and amalgamation during the great migration period and throughout the Middle Ages. ”

“ The fox ran to the tent of the Khan Manguis, lay down at the door and groans. The khan asks—"What art thou groaning at, O fox?" "A misfortune will befall unfortunate me," said the fox; "a storm is coming." "Oh, dear, that is a misfortune to me, too," says the Khan Manguis. "How to you?" says the fox; "you can order a hole ten fathoms deep to be dug, and can hide in it." So he did. Boroltai Ku appeared in the tent of the Khan Manguis, as if it was his own. ”

“ Then the Bodhisat again ascended the watch-tower, and cried out, "Sabbadâtha!"
"Well, what is it, brâhman?" he replied.
"What is it you are going to do in order to take possession of this kingdom?" he asked.
"I'll frighten the multitude by causing a lion's roar to be uttered, and, having destroyed the lives of all, I'll take the kingdom."
"You are not able," said the brahman, "to cause a lion's roar to be uttered, for maned-lion-kings of noble birth will not obey an old jackal like you." ”

“ Or do they think the numberless little matters of folk-lore which must come under the observation of dwellers in the country are too trivial or too well-known to be worth recording? If so, they surely make a great mistake. In the first place, it is just as rash for persons who have chiefly lived in one place to conclude that what is familiar to them must be familiar to all the world, as it is to fly into the opposite (but not uncommon) error of fancying that what is customary in their own neighbourhood is peculiar to the locality and unknown to the rest of the world. ”

“ In ancient days, when men were allowed to have several wives, a certain man had two—one about his own age, the other quite young,— and he loved them both with equal tenderness. But when the younger of the two bore him a daughter, his love for his daughter made him also perhaps a little fonder of the mother of the child than of his other wife, to the latter's great rage. ”

“ The golden apple-trees are so beautiful that you can't look at them for beauty; I forgot myself, and couldn't take the wooden pole, as you told me; but took the golden pole to beat the golden apple-tree; the branch emitted a whistling sound, and woke the watch; the watch seized me, and delivered me to their lord, and the lord told me if i procured him the golden horse, which goes over the world in twenty-four hours, he would give me the golden apple-tree, that I might give the apple-tree for the vine, to take to my father, that he might weep no more. ”

“ No Russian bone can the ear hear or the eye see, but there's a smell of Russia here." "What are you talking about, Koshchei? There's no one with me," replied Prince Ivan's mother. A second time spake Koshchei and said, "I feel rather unwell." Then Prince Ivan began squeezing the egg, and therefore Koshchei the deathless bent double. At last Prince Ivan came out from his hiding-place, held up the egg and said, " There is your death, Koshchei the deathless!" Then Koshchei fell on his knees before him, saying, "Don't kill me, Prince Ivan, let's be friends; all the world will lie at our feet." ”

“ Comparing now these tales with each other, the same result will always be obtained, viz. that the literature of romance and novel, be it a religious romance or one of chivalry, has passed now-a-days to a great extent into the literature of fairy tales, and that, far from being the basis, the fairy tales are the top of the pyramid formed by the lore of the people. They are the outcome of a long literary influence, as well as an oral one, which was exercised upon the mind and soul of the people during centuries. ”

“ To me it seems evident that if folk-lore—a term which, as international, I have been the first to respect—is to form a universal science, it is necessary that men of all nations should contribute to its progress, in order that the meaning which this science receives in Italy, France, Russia, Germany, or Portugal, may not be divergent, but only aspects and tendencies—phases of one and the same order of studies. ”

“ Above the roar of the winds and waves the eager watchers from the shore, who were waiting for the arrival of the vessel with her precious freight, could hear the solemn tolling of their bells. And still before a gale their warning chimes sound from their ocean bed, but woe to the unhappy ship's crew that hears them, for wreck, misfortunes, and deaths are sure to follow. The following proverb would seem to infer that Boscastle, as well as no bells, has no market: "All play and no play, like Boscastle Market which begins at twelve o'clock and ends at noon." ”