over reason in savages--Method of the inquiry.

Fairy Tales, as defined in the previous chapter, fall under two heads.
Under the first we may place all those stories which relate to definite
supernatural beings, or definite orders of supernatural beings, held
really to exist, and the scenes of which are usually laid in some
specified locality. Stories belonging to this class do not necessarily,
however, deal with the supernatural. Often they are told of historical
heroes, or persons believed to have once lived. For instance, the
legends of Lady Godiva and Whittington and his Cat, which, however
improbable, contain nothing of the supernatural, must be reckoned under
this head equally with the story of the Luck of Edenhall, or the Maori
tale of the Rending asunder of Heaven and Earth. In other words, this
class is by no means confined to Fairy Tales, but includes all stories
which are, or at all events have been up to recent years, and in the
form in which they come to us, looked upon as narratives of actual
occurrences. They are called _Sagas_. The other class of tales consists
of such as are told simply for amusement, like Jack and the Beanstalk,
Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and Puss in Boots. They may embody
incidents believed in other countries, or in other stages of
civilization, to be true in fact; but in the form in which we have them
this belief has long since been dropped. In general, the reins are
thrown upon the neck of the imagination; and, marvellous though the
story be, it cannot fail to find acceptance, because nobody asserts that
its events ever took place, and nobody desires to bring down its flights
to the level either of logic or experience. Unlike the saga, it binds
the conscience neither of teller nor of listener; its hero or heroine
has no historical name or fame, either national or local; and being
untrammelled either by history or probability, the one condition the tale
is expected to fulfil is to end happily. Stories of this class are
technically called _Maerchen_: we have no better English name for them
than _Nursery Tales_.

If we inquire which of these two species of tales is the earlier in the
history of culture, it seems that the priority must be given to sagas.
The matter, indeed, is not quite free from doubt, because low down in
the scale of civilization, as among the Ainos of Japan, stories are told
which appear to be no more than _maerchen_; and because, on the other
hand, it is