admit that history can proceed from anything but a dated and
certified document, and by a few who do not admit that history has
anything to do with affairs that do not emanate from the prominent
political or military personages of each period. It is silently, if
not contemptuously ignored by almost every historical inquirer whose
attention has not been specially directed to the evidence contained in
traditional material. Thus between the difficulties arising from the
interpretation of texts which, originating in oral tradition, have by
reason of their early record become literature, and the difficulties
arising from the objections of historians to accept any evidence that
is not strictly historical in the form they assume to be historical,
traditional material has not been extensively used as history. It has
also been wrongly defined by historians. Thus, to give a pertinent
example, so good a scholar as Mr. W. H. Stevenson, in his admirable
edition of Asser's _Life of King Alfred_, lays to the crimes of
tradition an error which is due to other causes. Indeed, he states the
cause of the error correctly, but does not see that he is
contradicting himself in so doing. It is worth quoting this case. It
has to do with the identification of "Cynuit," a place where the Danes
obtained a victory over the English forces, and Kenwith Castle in
Devonshire has been claimed as the site of the struggle and "a place
known as Bloody Corner in Northam is traditionally regarded as the
scene of a duel between two of the chieftains in 877, and a monument
recording the battle has been erected."[4] Mr. Stevenson's comment
upon this is: "We have in this an instructive example of the
worthlessness of 'tradition' which is here, as so frequently happens
elsewhere, the outcome of the dreams of local antiquaries, whose
identifications become gradually impressed upon the memory of the
inhabitants;" and he then proceeds to show that this particular
tradition was produced by the suggestion of Mr. R. S. Vidal in 1804.
Of course, the answer of the folklorist to this charge 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 expres