cuments.

There is, however, one caution--namely, to be assured that the documents
are gathered direct from the lips of the illiterate story-teller, and
set down with accuracy and good faith. Every turn of phrase, awkward or
coarse though it may seem to cultured ears, must be unrelentingly
reported; and every grotesquery, each strange word, or incomprehensible
or silly incident, must be given without flinching. Any attempt to
soften down inconsistencies, vulgarities or stupidities, detracts from
the value of the text, and may hide or destroy something from which the
student may be able to make a discovery of importance to science.
Happily the collectors of the present day are fully alive to this need.
The pains they take to ensure correctness are great, and their
experiences in so doing are often very interesting. Happily, too, the
student soon learns to distinguish the collections whose sincerity is
certain from those furbished up by literary art. The latter may have
purposes of amusement to serve, but beyond that they are of
comparatively little use.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Campbell, vol. i. pp. xii. xiv. lvii.

[2] Luzel, "Veillees," _passim_.

[3] Introduction to Romero, p. x.; Arnaudin, p. 5.

[4] Thomas Ady, "A Candle in the Dark" (1656) (_Cf._ Aubrey, "Remaines,"
p. 67); "Gesta Romanorum," Introd., p. xxv. (E.E.T.S.); Lacroix, p. 100.

[5] Pitre, vol. iv. p. xvii.

[6] "Wide-awake Stories," p. 1; Knowles, p. ix.

[7] White, vol. i. p. vi.; Sir G. Grey, p. vii.; Gill, p. xx.; Rink, pp.
83, 85.

[8] Ellis, "History of Madagascar," vol. i. p. 264; Sproat, "Scenes and
Studies of Savage Life," p. 51; Im Thurn, pp. 215, 216.

[9] Temple, "Legends of the Panjab," vol. i. p. v.; Thorburn, p. 172;
Leland, p. 12; Taylor, p. 306; "Beowulf," lay 16; Tacitus, "Germania,"
cc., 2, 3; "Ancient Laws and Institutions of Wales" (Public Record
Commission, 1841), pp. 15, 35, &c.

[10] Burton, "Nights," vol. x. p. 163; "Revue des Trad. Pop." vol. iv.
p. 6. In Greece and Albania, however, the viol would seem not to be
used. Women are the chief reciters. Von Hahn, vol. i. p. ix.

[11] Spitta Bey, p. viii.

[12] Steere, pp. v., vii.

[13] Rink, p. 85; Grimm, "Maerchen," p. vii.

CHAPTER II.

SAVAGE IDEAS.

Sagas and _Maerchen_--Fairy Tales based upon ideas familiar to
savages--The Doctrine of Spirits--The Doctrine of
Transformation--Totemism--Death--Witchcraft--The predominance of
imagination