nd folklore has
cleared the ground for definitions and method. Before the material of
which folklore consists can be considered by the light of method, we
must get rid of definitions which are often applied to folklore in its
attributed sense. Folk-tales are not fiction or art, were not invented
for amusement, are not myth in the sense of being imaginative
only.[182] Customs and superstitions are not the result of ignorance
and stupidity. These attributes are true only if folk-tales, customs,
and superstitions are compared with the literary productions and with
the science and the culture of advanced civilisation; and this
comparison is exactly that which should never be undertaken, though
unfortunately it is that which is most generally adopted. The
folk-tale may be lent on occasion to the artist--to Mr. Lang, to Mr.
Jacobs, and their many copyists; and these artists may rejoice at the
wonderful results of the unconscious art that resides in these
products of tradition, but the folk-tale must not be wholly
surrendered. It does not belong to them. It does not belong to art at
all, but to science. That it is artistic in form is an addition to its
characteristics, but has nothing whatever to do with its fundamental
features. Similarly with legend. It may be lent to Malory, to
Tennyson, to Longfellow, to the literary bards of the romance period,
for the purpose of weaving together their story of the wonderful; but
it must not be surrendered to the romancist, and, above all things,
the romances must never be allowed to enter the domain of folklore.
Romances may be stripped of their legends so that the source of
legendary material may be fully utilised, but the romances themselves
belong to literature, and must remain within their own portals. And so
with customs. They may be pleasing and reveal some of the beauties of
the older joyousness of life which has passed away, it is to be
regretted, from modern civilisation; they may be revived in May-day
celebrations, in pageants, in providing our schools with games which
tell of the romance of living. But they do not belong to the lover of
the beautiful or to the revivalists. Equally with the folk-tale they
belong to science. And so also with superstitions. The Psychical
Research Society, the spiritualists, the professional successors of
the mediaeval witch and wizard, may turn their attention to traditional
superstitions; but the folklorist refuses to hand them over, and
claims