erms invention and romance from being
applied, except where there is good independent reason for their use.

* * * * *

I have now dealt with all the points which appear to be necessary in
order to show the inherent relationship of folklore to history, and I
have shown causes for resisting the claims of mythology to appropriate
what it chooses of folklore, and then to reject all the rest from
consideration. I have dealt (1) with examples of local traditions and
hero-traditions, in their relation to history and historical
conditions; (2) with the folk-tale in its retention of details of
early historic conditions, and of the picture of early tribal
organisation, and in that its structure is based upon the events of
savage social conceptions; (3) with the early laws and rules of tribal
society preserved by tradition and accepted in historical times; (4)
with the claims of mythology to interpret the meaning of folk-tales,
and the reasons for rejecting this claim; and (5) with the treatment
by historians of statements by classical writers as to the condition
of the peoples inhabiting Britain before the dawn of civilisation. I
think it will be admitted that, without pretending in any way to have
exhausted the evidence, or even to have thoroughly comprehended and
satisfactorily stated it under each of these heads, a very
considerable claim has been made out for the historical value of
folklore. If so much has been gained it will rest with folklorists to
pursue investigations on these lines, and it will remain with the
historian to consider the results wherever his research leads him into
domains where the evidence of folklore is obtainable.

It will be seen that the problems which the two sciences, history and
folklore, have to solve in conjunction are not a few and that they are
extremely complex. They cannot be solved if history and folklore are
separated; they may be solved if the professors in each work together,
both recognising what there is of value in the other. History in its
earliest stages is either entirely dependent upon foreign
authorities, or it has to follow the practice of the earlier and
unscientific historian and to deny that there is any history, or at
all events any history worth recording, before the advent, perhaps the
accidental advent, of an historian on native ground. History in its
later stages is dependent upon the personal tastes or ability of each
historian for th