and the historical event round which it clusters.
Historians doubting the myth doubt too the history; mythologists
doubting the history reject the myth from all consideration, and in
this way much is lost to history which properly belongs to it, and
something is lost to myth.

If, therefore, I have hitherto laid undue stress upon the foundation
of tradition in the actual facts of life, and upon the close
association of tradition with historic fact, it is because this side
of the question has been so generally neglected. Everything has been
turned on to the mythic side. Folk-tales have been claimed as the
exclusive property of the mythologists, and those who have urged their
foundation on the facts of real life have scarcely been listened to.
There is, however, no ground for the converse process to be
advocated. If tradition is not entirely mythology it is certainly not
all founded on sociology, and the mythic tradition in the possession
of a people advanced in culture has to be considered and accounted
for. It is myth in contact with history, and the contact compels
consideration of the result.

I

The first necessity is for definitions. Careful attention to what has
already been said will reveal the fact that tradition contains three
separate classes, and I would suggest definition of these classes by a
precise application of terms already in use: The _myth_ belongs to the
most primitive stages of human thought, and is the recognisable
explanation of some natural phenomenon, some forgotten or unknown
object of human origin, or some event of lasting influence; the
_folk-tale_ is a survival preserved amidst culture-surroundings of a
more advanced stage, and deals with events and ideas of primitive
times in terms of the experience or of episodes in the lives of
unnamed human beings; the _legend_ belongs to an historical personage,
locality, or event. These are new definitions, and are suggested in
order to give some sort of exactness to the terms in use. All these
terms--myth, folk-tale, and legend--are now used indiscriminately with
no particular definiteness. The possession of three such distinct
terms forms an asset which should be put to its full use, and this
cannot be done until we agree upon a definite meaning for each.

The first place must be given to mythic tradition. This is not
special to our own, or to any one branch of the human race. It belongs
to all--to the Hindu, the Greek, the Slav, the Teuton, t