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Jacobs.—Science of Folk-tales.
101

had settled that by applying the name of "Casualists" to the other side. He had not the advantage of being a Cambridge man, but he could not get over the doctrine of probabilities, which neither the Chairman nor Mr. Nutt had met. In order to get near closer quarters they ought to have a list of stories with a series of incidents—simple ones would not help them—and if they turned out to come in a certain sequence, then the doctrine of probabilities came in, and he did not see any escape from the consequences which Mr. Jacobs had been dilating upon.

Mr. Tcheraz (Armenia) said, that being a native of Turkey, he felt some difficulty in expressing himself in English. He had made Eastern folk-lore a special study, having read all the books on the subject published in Armenian. As regards the question whether the East had borrowed from the West or the West from the East, which Mr. Jacobs had touched upon, and on which also the Chairman's remarks with reference to Sicilian folk-tales had some bearing, the meeting would perhaps like to hear the opinion of an Eastern person. The argument of the Western folk-lorists was this, that the fact of a few folk-tales having distinctive characters, induced them to think that the East must have borrowed these materials. This argument, however, might, with an equal show of reason, be reversed, so that there could not be much in it. For instance, the argument about the folk-tale hero speaking to doors, as mentioned by Mr. Hartland in his paper, was also found in many Armenian tales, especially in the tale of Saint Sergius, where the door was not only spoken to, but actually listened to and obeyed the hero.

He regretted that this and many other folk-lore books, which were constantly published in Armenian, were absolutely unknown in Europe, and he strongly urged the Congress not to form any definite conclusion before they had heard all the witnesses in the case. Armenia was the oldest country in the world, according to Armenian tradition the Ark having been supported on top of the Mount Ararat, and the folk-lore of so old a country, he held, must be exceedingly interesting. During the eight winter months (there being neither spring nor autumn, and only four months of summer in Armenia) people spent their time telling folk-lore tales. Mr. Hartland had said this morning that it was time now to draw conclusions from the thousands of volumes they had; but large though the number was, the Eastern part, such as Armenia, Persia, Turkey, Greece, and Russia, was not adequately represented, and, in his opinion, until the Eastern literature had been thoroughly studied, it was too early to form any conclusion.

Mr. Jacobs, in reply, would content himself with a single remark in answer to Mr. Nutt. The scientific value of the anthropological