Various

“ Educated people, as a rule, had no inkling that the mental state of the great majority of their fellow-countrymen differed in scarcely any material respect from that of savages. They did not dream that their humble neighbours had preserved amongst themselves by oral tradition alone a set of customs and ideas so ancient that the oldest literature of Greece and Rome is modern by comparison. To have at last opened the eyes of educated people to the priceless value of popular tradition as evidence of a remote antiquity is the glory of the illustrious Grimm. ”

“ Alexander having conquered the known world, full of presumption, sets forth to exact tribute from Paradise. He embarks on the Ganges, and after a month's journey comes to a walled city; one of the inhabitants hands the king a jewel in the form of a human eye, and bids him begone. The stone is of this nature which none but an aged Jew can explain; it outweighs any amount of gold, but is itself outweighed by a handful of dust; it is a symbol of human desire which no gold can satisfy, but which at last must be content with a little earth. ”

“ It has come to us to see and to know and to understand, and knowledge is sublime; but, in the presence of that unconscious perpetuation by generation upon generation of men and women of our race, in obedience to the instincts of their blood, I feel myself in the presence of something more than human knowledge—something mighty and organic, in which consciousness and unconsciousness are simply phases of the same thing. ”

“ Myth, then, is the record, often the only record, of man's groping in the darkness, of his successive attempts to solve the riddles of the universe and of his own mind. It is something more than the excuse of a stupid man for his lack of understanding. In other words, myths embody the results of his accumulated experiences, and a race destitute of myth is necessarily unprogressive. In all primitive groups custom is practically the only guide to conduct, and folklore, which is essentially the record of custom, is sometimes evidence of the highest value as a test of the rate of custom evolution. ”

“ If our peasants are, intellectually regarded, simply savages, could the peasantry of ancient Greece and Rome have been any better? And if we moderns have lived so long in ignorance of the mass of savagery lying at our doors, may not the literary classes of antiquity have been equally blind to the mental savagery of the peasants whom they saw at work in the fields or jostled in the streets? ”

“ If the cabbage was well grown the girl was to have a handsome husband, but woe betide the unlucky damsel who got one with a crooked stalk ; her husband would be a stingy old man.
Then comes nut-burning, as an antidote to all this boisterous fun. You put two nuts on the bar and name them, but must not mention the names or all luck will vanish. If one hops off, then that pair will not marry ; if one burns to a cinder and not the other, it is a case of unrequited love; but if both burn away steadily, they will marry and live happy ever after. ”

“ Literature then cannot disassociate itself from the past of the race: for the artist, what has been, is. Nay more; literature by its nature is bound to be, in the Miltonic phrase, simple, sensuous, and passionate, conditions fulfilled far more perfectly in the antique societies which gave birth to romance than in the present day. The greatest literature of the world has its roots in myth and romance, and these are the spring-heads at which modern literature drinks when it would fain renew its youth and strength. ”

“ I do not say that savages, or peasants, believe their folk-tales, though some may. I say (Mr. Jacobs cannot, I know, see the difference) that many incidents in these tales were invented when men were capable of believing in Balaam's ass, when sorcerers could understand the speech of birds, as in Zululand, when people, like the modern Australian black fellows, put questions to and took answers from the brutes. What in the world has this to do with asserting that a peasant, who inherits a tale composed when all nature was personal, believes the tale? ”

“ Seeing the manner in which the old kings and heroes were changed into knights and squires, the old gods into magicians and fairies, I do not think that I shall be considered very bold if I say that the legend of the Quest is nothing else but also a transformation of the most interesting episodes of that very legend of Alexander; the hero of the Grail romance is none else but Alexander, the Quest the counterpart of his attempt to force the Gates of Paradise, and the wonderful castle or temple, the one that Alexander saw in his marvellous expedition. ”

“ All at once, Roar, who was not seated, came to his father and said, 'Father, you are getting old; let me take your place.' 'Oh no, my son,' was the answer, 'I am not too old to work; it is not yet time: wait awhile.' Then, with an entreating look, Roar said, 'Oh, father, all your children and myself are often sorry to see you look so tired when the day's labour is over: the work of the farm is too much for you it is time for you to rest and do nothing. Rest in your old age. ”

“ A bleak mountain chain overhangs the northern shore—a barrier of grey and treeless rock. Storm-gusts sweep down the narrow clefts and corries, blowing mist, and rain, and sunshine over the wide water; cloud masses drift over the dark shoulders, and fill the valleys, of the hills; the cry of the white gulls alone breaks the silence of untilled shores and of water where no sail ventures. ”

“ Under this northern rock wall is a small island, so covered with luxuriant foliage that a fragment of green forest seems to have been carved out and placed in the loch, set in a border of golden sand. This is the island of St. Maree, or Mourie—his names are many—beneath whose groves lie the sacred tree and healing well, the traditions of old rites, and legendary graves, which have made the place famous far over Scotland. ”

“ They are all customs or beliefs which totemists do practise, yet the animal name may be a mere nickname; the wearing of animal skins may have a magical purpose, the badge may be a mere amulet or fancy, the metamorphosis may be not totemistic, but a myth derived from a name, a pun, or from a poetic guess; there may be special causes, in fact, and totemism may have nothing to say in the matter. Is it not plain that a white night-moth may be fancifully or superstitiously called a “soul” from its soft, ghost-like flight in the darkness, though no tribe ever claimed descent from the moth? ”

“ Hameln is a charming old town, and if you go there knowing that it is one of the shrines of folk-lore, and go in sympathetic mood, you will feel as if you had passed out of every-day environment into story-land, and may wonder whether you have done so in a dream, or whether the bliss be yours in tangible reality. ”

“ Thou art not, wretched iron, produced,
Thy kindred are not formed, thy relatives will not grow up
Without violent fire, without being taken to a smithy.
Without being put into a forge, without being blown upon by bellows.
But heed it not, pray do not pay the least regard.
Fire will not burn his acquaintance — will not burn a relative. ”

“ Never saw man such a monster. She seizes his bridle and demands his part of the bargain, and he would fain flee if he could. As a sick man takes bitter drugs with spice and sugar, Florent drinks his draught. But, as a true knight, he must keep his troth, for the honour of womanhood; and so he speaks to her as gently as he can, and sets her before him on his horse, sighing as he rides along. Like an owl, he hides during the day and journeys at night, till he comes to his own castle, and smuggles in the loathly lady. ”

“ Can it have been much different with the initial production of folk-tales? Can we imagine the Folk inventing Cinderella or Puss-in-Boots, or any of the innumerable novelettes of the nursery? The process is unthinkable. These little masterpieces of narrative art emanated from an artist, who had the grin of conscious creation on his face as he told Cinderella, Puss-in-Boots, or Rumpelstiltskin for the first time in the world's history. Artistry is individual: that cannot come from the Folk no more than novels can arise spontaneously and simultaneously among the subscribers of Messrs. ”

“ The old man himself and his companions are really dead, though they seem it not, but the lady and her damsels are living; for their unstained womanhood God has granted them to have the Grail, and therewith yearly to feed the old man."
So in all the versions it is a magnificent castle, wherein the one constantly-recurring figure is that of an old, sick or dead man, surrounded by jewels, plates or dishes of gold, and a mysterious thing, a cup with blood, or a box with bread, and a bloody lance. Only in Wolfram is it a mysterious rock or a jewel upon which a dove lays once a year a holy wafer. ”

“ The fir hastily replied: "There is no honey in my boughs, no virgin honey beneath my bark. Thrice in summer, during this wretched summer season a raven croaked upon my crown, a snake lay at my root, winds blew past me, the sun shone through me."
He goes his way, keeps stepping forwards, finds an oak on a trampled plain, makes inquiry of his oak: "Is there any honey in thy boughs, any virgin honey beneath thy bark to serve as salve for hurts, as embrocation for sores:" The oak made answer intelligently: "There is honey in my boughs, virgin honey beneath my bark. ”

“ At last one John Aller, a brave and valiant man, who lived at Aller, vowed that he would kill it. He laid in wait, and when next the dragon flew across to Aller hill he attacked it, and, after a fierce struggle, slew it, and cut off its head. Then its fiery blood ran out, and scorched up all the grass around, and from that day to this grass has never grown on the spot. John Aller was so burnt by the dragon's breath that he died almost at the same moment as the dragon. ”

“ But it is one of the satisfactions of scientific inquiry into human thought that the mind is not capable of absolutely freeing itself from the region of fact. It reaches back into the past by the effort of memory, tradition, and record; it reaches forward into the future by the sublime function of hope. But as what it sees in the past cannot be its own creation, independent of fact, so what it foresees in the future cannot be independent of fact ”

“ How did these curious ideas about a fairy world, where things are other than they seem, where no Newton has discovered a law of gravitation, where time has wings and clocks spell years for minutes, where human beings lose their sense of time, and fairy maidens doff their quaint garbs—how did mankind come to think such things? Mr. Hartland answers in short: men have been savages, and savages regard all these things as natural, just as much a part of the normal course of things as marrying many wives or eating human beings for food. ”

“ If you don't build a palace of pure, fine gold, seven storeys high, by to-morrow morning, and if this palace does not stand upon a slender diamond foot, I will have your head cut off!"
The king thought, however, that his son would not be able to do this, and he was already rejoicing that he would be able to put him to death; for he was afraid that he would send him to hell with his diablerie. The prince himself did not believe that the genius would be able to build such a palace; nevertheless, he told him what the king wanted. ”

“ I, myself, do not believe that even the imaginative faculty of the human brain is capable of absolutely "inventing" anything. It may alter the conception of things already in existence, add together incongruous elements, and produce results which are marvellous or supernatural, according to the frame of mind in which we look at them. It may produce many incongruous equations—such, for instance, as human body + bird's wings = angels; it may create a hell out of its own gloomy and dismal fears, and a heaven out of the delights of life. ”

“ Personally I have a sneaking regard for a theory of civilisation which makes it one huge example of the Borrowing-Theory, to which I have, most unscientifically, I fear, pinned my partiality, so that I am ready to welcome it even where no facts exist on which to base our judgment. But where no facts, or few facts, or still unverified facts exist, we have no choice but to revert to hypothesis—provided we have the courage of Mr. Stuart-Glennie, and are content to fall with our hypothesis when facts prove unkind and refuse to fall into the pigeon-holes we have prepared for them. ”

“ One has only to compare the widely different parallels adduced from Celtic lore, to be convinced that Chrestien, or the author of the original which he adopted, must have had a herculean task to perform, to alter and change, to blend and to assimilate, an immense mass of tales, mythical and heroical, and mould them together into one tale, which, after all, does not appear in a coherent form in any of its modern parallels. For it must be borne in mind that such a Celtic tale, containing most of the striking incidents, and older than the time of Chrestien, has not yet been discovered. ”

“ But I venture to think that much more of the ancient tradition than is generally believed will reward the patient enquirer. The remarkable fact about the lore of the folk is its extreme vitality. It may not be openly expressed, because an ignorant minority brands it as vulgar or unscientific. But this amorphous group of beliefs, deep rooted in the hearts of our people, never entirely disappears, and fragments of it crop up in the most unexpected places. ”

“ Came by chance on the wolf's tracks — on the dints of the bear's heel,
Saw the iron sprouts, the balls of steel,
On the wolf's huge tracks, on the dints of the bear's heel,
(And) to this speech gives utterance :
"Alas for thee, unlucky iron,
For thou art in a wretched plight — in a lowly situation,
In a wolf's footmarks on a swamp, quite in the footsteps of a bear.
Wouldst thou not grow beautiful — increase in loveliness,
If I extricated thee from the swamp — conveyed thee to a smithy,
Forced thee into a fireplace, set thee down in a forge ?" ”

“ He advances with tripping gait, approaches with deliberate steps, advanced to the foot of the tree to break down the huge oak. He struck the tree with his axe, dealt it a blow with its level edge. He struck once, twice, and a third time struck a blow. Fire spirted from the axe, flame escaped from the oak.
Some chips of the tree whirled down suddenly, some fragments suddenly came wobbling down upon a nameless meadow, upon a land without a knoll. Other chips scattered, widely dispersed themselves upon the clear and open sea, upon the wide and open main. ”

“ It rose from the earth like a strawberry, grew like a three-branched one, being formed to branch by cleared land on which fir branches lie, made to grow by land that has been cleared, rocked to-and fro by a whirl of wind, suckled by bitter frost, drawn up by its top by the Creator, nourished by the Almighty. ”

“ Folk-tales, when they are reduced to the level of literature, will never really teach children literature, nor morals, nor manners; because all their charm is in the unconscious—the unconscious—beauty and poetry of their incidents and characters. Let the real hero-tale of history then be brought to do its duty in the nursery, and in the meantime let us note how it was in the years gone by the original of the traditional tale itself. ”

“ THE Society, no less than Miss Cox, may be proud indeed of the noble volume in which are retold the varied chances and adventures that befell the despised stay-at-home sister, to whom in the end came riches, and power, and princely rank. Have we not here a symbol of our study's fate? Long relegated to the cinder-heap and the goose-green, is not Folk-lore now essaying her hidden robes of golden cloth and starry sheen? ”

“ Well, then, if every fragment of belief, custom, or tradition that is not academic in origin has an origin in man's observation of fact, we have before us the doctrine that the primitive thought of man does not change radically, but slowly develops from one stage to another. And it is this doctrine that alone justifies the comparison of beliefs and customs in widely separated areas. In any given society, all that is in the process of development is culture; all that has ceased to develop, and remains crystallized, is folk-lore. ”