e record of events and facts. Folklore in its earliest
stages has brought down from the most ancient times memories of
ancient polity, faith, custom, rite, and thought. In its later stages
it has preserved custom, rite, and belief amid the attacks of the
progressive civilisation which has been developed, and it has clothed
heroes of later times with the well-worn trappings of those of old.
Combined history and folklore can restore much of the picture of early
times, and can work through the fulness of later times with some
degree of success. There is needed for this work, however, a clear
conception of the position properly held by both sciences, together
with established rules of research. This is more particularly needed
in the department of folklore. I do not pretend to be able to
formulate these rules. In the subjects dealt with in this chapter I
have indicated a few of the points which must be raised, and my object
will be in the remaining chapters to set forth some of the conditions
which it appears to me necessary to consider in connection with the
problems with which folklore is concerned as one of the historical
sciences.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr. Kemble gives an important illustration of this proposition in
his _Saxons in England_, i. 331.

[2] I would refer the reader to Prof. York Powell's brilliant lecture
on "A Survey of Modern History," printed in his biography by Mr. Oliver
Elton, ii. 1-13, for an admirable summary of this view.

[3] _View of the State of Ireland_, 1595, p. 478.

[4] Asser's _Life of Alfred_, by W. H. Stevenson, 262.

[5] It is not worth while unduly emphasising this point, but the
peculiar habit of classing fictional literature as folklore and
thereupon condemning the value of tradition is very prevalent. Mr.
Nutt, in dealing with the Troy stories in British history, adopts this
method, and denies the existence of historic tradition on the strength
of it, _Folklore_, xii. 336-9.

[6] This expression was recently allowed in our old friend _Notes and
Queries_ in a singularly unsuitable case, 10th ser. vii. 344.

[7] I am not sure this is always the fault of those who are not
folklorists. I recently came across a dictum of one of the most
distinguished folklorists, Mr. Andrew Lang, which is certainly much in
the same direction. "As a rule tradition is the noxious ivy that creeps
about historical truth, and needs to be stripped off with a ruthless
hand. Tradition is a collection of ven