PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.
THE DISCRIMINATION OF RACIAL ELEMENTS IN THE FOLKLORE OF THE BRITISH ISLES.
In my address last year[1] I had occasion to lay considerable stress upon the presence in English literature of features derived, as I contended, from the mythico-heroic romance of the Celtic portion of our mixed population. I shall essay this evening to determine the limits within which conjecture as to the possible share in our common folklore of each section of that population is likely to prove fruitful, and to briefly indicate the lines along which, in my estimation, research should move if it is to attain any definite result. The discussion will necessarily be of a general character. I shall not be able to check the principles that may emerge from it by any examination of folklore items. But it is at times useful to take a broad survey of certain fields of our study, to plan out one’s campaigning ground, as it were, from a lofty eminence unembarrassed by the water-courses, swamps, and forests which are apt to encumber the progress of the toiler on the plains.
I necessarily leave out of account the numerous items of British folklore of recent and well-ascertained historical origin, as well as those traits and features which, be their ultimate source what it may, have undoubtedly assumed their present form (or rather the form of which the present one is a degradation) in a specifically Celtic or Teutonic environment. But there remain vast masses of belief and fancy the proximate origin of which is uncertain, and in which definite racial influences of the most varied character have been detected on very slight grounds.
