Folklore as an Historical Science | Page 4

the inheritance
from this earliest race.
In this manner I have surveyed the several conditions attachable to the

study of folklore and the various departments of science with which it
is inseparably associated. Folklore cannot be studied alone. Alone it is
of little worth. As part of the inheritance from bygone ages it cannot
separate itself from the conditions of bygone ages. Those who would
study it carefully, and with purpose, must consider it in the light which
is shed by it and upon it from all that is contributory to the history of
man.
During my exposition I have ventured upon many criticisms of masters
in the various departments of knowledge into which I have penetrated;
but in all cases with great respect. Criticism, such as I have indulged in,
is nothing more than a respectful difference of opinion on the particular
points under discussion, and which need every light which can be
thrown upon them, even by the humblest student.
I am particularly obliged to Mr. Lang, Mr. Hartland, Dr. Haddon, and
Dr. Rivers, for kindly reading my chapter on Anthropological
Conditions, and for much valuable and kind help therein; and
especially I owe Mr. Lang most grateful thanks, for he took an
immense deal of trouble and gave me the advantage of his searching
criticism, always in the direction of an endeavour to perfect my faulty
evidence. I shall not readily part with his letters and MS. on this subject,
for they show alike his generosity and his brilliance.
To my old friend Mr. Fairman Ordish I am once more indebted for help
in reading my sheets, and I am also glad to acknowledge the fact that
two of my sons, Allan Gomme and Wycombe Gomme, have read my
proofs and helped me much, not only by their criticism, but by their
knowledge.
24 DORSET SQUARE, N.W.

FOLKLORE AS AN HISTORICAL SCIENCE
CHAPTER I

HISTORY AND FOLKLORE
It may be stated as a general rule that history and folklore are not
considered as complementary studies. Historians deny the validity of
folklore as evidence of history, and folklorists ignore the essence of
history which exists in folklore. Of late years it is true that Dr. Frazer,
Prof. Ridgeway, Mr. Warde Fowler, Miss Harrison, Mr. Lang, and
others have broken through this antagonism and shown that the two
studies stand together; but this is only in certain special directions, and
no movement is apparent that the brilliant results of special inquiries
are to bring about a general consideration of the mutual help which the
two studies afford, if in their respective spheres the evidence is treated
with caution and knowledge, and if the evidence from each is brought
to bear upon the necessities of each.
The necessities of history are obvious. There are considerable gaps in
historical knowledge, and the further back we desire to penetrate the
scantier must be the material at the historian's disposal. In any case
there can be only two considerable sources of historical knowledge,
namely, foreign and native. Looking at the subject from the points
presented by the early history of our own country, there are the Greek
and Latin writers to whom Britain was a source of interest as the most
distant part of the then known world, and the native historians, who,
witnessing the terribly changing events which followed the break-up of
the Roman dominion over Britain, recorded their views of the changes
and their causes, and in course of time recorded also some of the events
of Celtic history and of Anglo-Saxon history. Then for later periods, no
country of the Western world possesses such magnificent materials for
history as our own. In the vast quantity of public and private documents
which are gradually being made accessible to the student there exists
material for the illustration and elucidation of almost every side and
every period of national life, and no branch of historical research is
more fruitful of results than the comparison of the records of the
professed historian with the documents which have not come from the
historian's hands.
All this, however, does not give us the complete story. Necessarily

there are great and important gaps. Contemporary writers make
themselves the judges of what is important to record; documents
preserved in public or private archives relate only to such events as
need or command the written record or instrument, or to those which
have interested some of the actors and their families. Hence in both
departments of history, the historical narrative and the original record,
it will be found on careful examination that much is needed to make the
picture of life complete. It is the detail of everyday thought and action
that is missing--all that is so well known, the obvious as it passes
before every chronicler, the ceremony, the faith,