Folklore as an Historical Science | Page 2

reprint (1883) of this
remarkable book, published originally in 1581. The whole book is
historically valuable as showing the undeveloped nature of Irish culture.
The flesh was boiled in the hide, the fire is lighted in the open camp,
and the entire rudeness of the scene depicts the people "whose usages I
behelde after the fashion there sette downe."
19. LONG MEG AND HER DAUGHTERS (from a photograph by
Messrs. Frith) 193
20. STONE CIRCLES ON STANTON MOOR (from Archæologia)
193
Nos. 19 and 20 are illustrations of two of the lesser-known circles
about which the people hold such curious beliefs.
21. CHINESE REPRESENTATION OF PYGMIES GOING ABOUT
ARM-IN-ARM FOR MUTUAL PROTECTION (from Moseley's Notes
by a Naturalist on H.M.S. Challenger, by permission of Mr. John
Murray) 242
22. SEMANG OF KUALA KENERING, ULU PERAK (from Skeat
and Blagden's Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, by permission of
Messrs. Macmillan) 242
23. NEGRITO TYPE: SEMANG OF PERAK (from the same) 243
24. SEMANG OF KEDAH HAVING A MEAL (from the same) 244
25. TREE HUT, ULU BATU, ABOUT TWELVE MILES FROM
KUALA LUMPUR, SELANGOR (from the same) 298

The old-world traditions and the scientific observation of pygmy
people are illustrated in No. 21 and Nos. 22-25 respectively. Though
much has been written about the Pygmies, Messrs. Skeat and Blagden's
account of the Semang people is by far the most thorough and
important.
26. RITE OF BAPTISM ON THE FONT AT DARENTH, KENT
(from Romilly Allen's Early Christian Symbolism) 324
The crude paganism on the sculptured stone is confirmatory of the
pagan elements preserved in custom, and this illustration from Kent,
one of the earliest centres of Christianity in Britain, is singularly
interesting from this point of view.
27 and 28. TWO SCENES FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON LIFE OF
ST. GUTHLAC BY FELIX OF CROWLAND, DEPICTING THE
ATTACK OF THE DEMONS 351, 352
These two plates belong to a series of eight which illustrate the life of
the saint. They are less primitive in form than the story which they
illustrate. By contrast with the remaining six, however, which are
purely ecclesiastical in character, they show how this early episode kept
its place among the events of the saint's life.

PREFACE
If I have essayed to do in this book what should have been done by one
of the masters of the science of folklore--Mr. Frazer, Mr. Lang, Mr.
Hartland, Mr. Clodd, Sir John Rhys, and others--I hope it will not be
put down to any feelings of self-sufficiency on my part. I have greatly
dared because no one of them has accomplished, and I have so acted
because I feel the necessity of some guidance in these matters, and
more particularly at the present stage of inquiry into the early history of
man.
I have thought I could give somewhat of that guidance because of my
comprehension of its need, for the comprehension of a need is

sometimes half-way towards supplying the need. My profound belief in
the value of folklore as perhaps the only means of discovering the
earliest stages of the psychological, religious, social, and political
history of modern man has also entered into my reason for the attempt.
Many years ago I suggested the necessity for guidance, and I sketched
out a few of the points involved (Folklore Journal, ii. 285, 347; iii.
1-16) in what was afterwards called by a friendly critic a sort of
grammar of folklore. The science of folklore has advanced far since
1885 however, and not only new problems but new ranges of thought
have gathered round it. Still, the claims of folklore as a definite section
of historical material remain not only unrecognised but unstated, and as
long as this is so the lesser writers on folklore will go on working in
wrong directions and producing much mischief, and the historian will
judge of folklore by the criteria presented by these writers--will judge
wrongly and will neglect folklore accordingly.
I hope this book may tend to correct this state of things to some extent.
It is not easy to write on such a subject in a limited space, and it is
difficult to avoid being somewhat severely technical at points. These
demerits will, I am sure, be forgiven when considered by the light of
the human interest involved.
All studies of this kind must begin from the standpoint of a definite
culture area, and I have chosen our own country for the purpose of this
inquiry. This will make the illustrations more interesting to the English
reader; but it must be borne in mind that the same process could be
repeated for other areas if my estimate of the position is even tolerably
accurate. For the purpose of this estimate it was necessary, in the first
place, to show how pure history was