Folklore as an Historical Science | Page 6

against
the value of tradition is that the example is not a case of tradition[5] at
all. On the contrary, it is a case of false history, started by the local
antiquary, adopted by the scholars of the day, perpetuated by the
government in its ordnance survey of the district, and kept alive in the
minds of the people not by tradition but by a duly certified monument
erected for the express purpose of commemorating the invented
incident. There is then no tradition in any one of the stages through
which the episode has passed. It is all history and false history.
Historians cannot shake off their responsibilities by looking upon the
local antiquary as the responsible author of tradition. They cannot but
admit that the local antiquary belongs to the historical school, even
though he is not a fully equipped member of his craft, and because he
blunders they must not class him as a folklorist. They must bring better
evidence than this to show the worthlessness of tradition. In the
meantime it is the constant definition of tradition as worthless, the
relegation of worthless history "to the realms of folklore,"[6] which
does so much harm to the study of folklore as a science.[7] Because the
historian misnames an historical error as tradition, or fails to discover,
at the moment he requires it, the fact which lies hidden in tradition, he
must not dismiss the whole realm of tradition as useless for historical
purposes.
Let us freely admit that the historian is not altogether to blame for his
neglect and for his ignorance of tradition as historical material. He has
nothing very definite to work upon. Even the great work of Grimm is
open to the criticism that it does not prove the antiquity of popular
custom and belief--it merely states the proposition, and then relies for
proof upon the accumulation of an enormous number of examples and
the almost entire impossibility of suggesting any other origin than that
of antiquity for such a mass of non-Christian material. Then the great
work of Grimm, ethnographical in its methods, has never been
followed up by similar work for other countries. The philosophy of
folklore has taken up almost all the time of our scholars and students,

and the contribution it makes to the history of the civilised races has
not been made out by folklorists themselves. It does not appear to me to
be difficult to make out such a claim if only scientific methods are
adopted, and the solution of definite problems is attempted;[8] and if
too the difficulties in the way of proof are freely admitted, and where
they become insuperable, the attempt at proof is frankly abandoned. I
believe that every single item of folklore, every folk-tale, every
tradition, every custom and superstition, has its origin in some definite
fact in the history of man; but I am ready to concede that the definite
fact is not always traceable, that it sometimes goes so far back as to
defy recognition, that it sometimes relates to events which have no
place in the after-history of peoples who have taken a position on the
earth's surface, and which, in the prehistory stage, belong to humanity
rather than to peoples. Folklore, too, is governed by its own laws and
rules which are not the laws and rules of history. These concessions,
however, do not mean the introduction of the term "impossible" to our
studies. They mean rather a plea for the steady and systematic study of
our material, on the ground that it has much to yield to the historian of
man, and to the historians of races, of peoples, of nations, and of
countries.
[Illustration: CARVED WOODEN FIGURES IN SWAFFHAM
CHURCH, NORFOLK]
We cannot, however, show that this is so without facing many
difficulties created for the most part by folklorists themselves. In the
first place it is necessary to overtake some of the earlier conclusions of
the great masters of our science. The first rush, after the discovery of
the mine, led to the vortex created by the school of comparative
mythologists, who limited their comparison to the myths of
Aryan-speaking people, who absolutely ignored the evidence of custom,
rite, and belief, and who could see nothing beyond interpretations of
the sun, dawn, and sky gods in the parallel stories they were the first to
discover and value. We need not ignore all this work, nor need we be
ungrateful to the pioneers who executed it. It was necessary that their
view should be stated, and it is satisfactory that it was stated at a time
early in the existence of our science, because it is possible to clear it all

away, or as much of it as is necessary, without undue interference with
the material of which it is