THE SCIENCE OF FOLK-LORE.
I
SINCE my letter in the Folk-Lore Journal (vol. ii. p. 285) was published, and the interesting correspondence which followed thereon, two important books have made their appearance which considerably aid my views. These are Mr. Lang's Custom and Myth and Captain R. C. Temple's Wide-Awake Stories. It will be remembered that I urged three matters for the consideration of Folk-lorists:—(1.) The definition of folk-lore with reference to its scope and object. (2.) The settlement of a terminology for the titles of folk-tales. (3.) The settlement of a terminology for folk-tale incidents and the compilation of a standard index of incidents.
I should like it to be settled once for all that folk-lore is a science; at all events that it should be so considered by the Society both with reference to its objects and its mode of working. When Professor Max Müller first began to advocate the claims of language to a position among the sciences the first thing he had to do was to clear away some of the errors which had clung round the subject up to the time of his taking it in hand. The Folk-Lore Society has now been at work some seven years; its publications give a fair index to the range of subjects it includes; and yet outside the Society the old errors are still being repeated. These errors arise principally from the general identification of folk-lore with folk-tales. In all sorts of ways we find this identification cropping up. Thus Mr. Denton's Introduction to the Serbian Folk-Lore commences with the ominous words, "It is only within the last few years that the importance of folk-lore, the popular legends^ tales, drolls, and extravagances which have been handed down from generation to generation among the labourers, peasants, and youth of a nation has been frankly recognised." Again
