FOLK-LORE, a term compounded after a German model, and of late used to designate what may be called a department of antiquities or archmology—viz., that which relates to ancient observances and customs, and also ideas, prejudices, and superstitions among the common people. In England, the literature of this subject may be said to have commenced with the Miscellanies of John Aubrey, published in 1696, in which we find chapters on Day Fatality, Omens, Dreams, Corpse Candles, Second Sight, and kindred matters, to which that learned but credulous author—an early member of the royal society—bad given his attention. Here, however, the superstitions, rather than the ordi nary observances and customs of the people, were detailed. The first book addressed to the general subject of folk-lore was an octavo volume by the Rev. Henry Bourne, pub lished at Newcastle in 1725, under the title of Antiquitates ralgares, or the Antiquities of the Common People. It mainly consists of an account of the popular customs in connec tion with the feasts of the church. Fifty years after its publication, John Brand, ILA., a native of Newcastle, busied himself in extending the collections which originated with Bourne, and in 1777 lie published at that city the first edition of his Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, a work which was subsequently enlarged by him self, partly from the stores of folk-lore presented in the Statistical Account of Scotland (edited by Sinclair, 1791-95), but was left to be reissued, under a thoroughly revised i form, in 1813 (2 vols. 4to), by Henry Ellis, of the British museum. This work, in which Bourne's was incorporated, has since been twice reprinted, with additions,'and might have been regarded as an exhaustive work on the subject, if it had not been shown by Home's Book and Chambers's Book of Days, 2 vols., and _Notes and
Queries, that, after all, many curious particulars of English folk-lore remained to be gleaned. Through all these various channels, we now have tolerably ample information on popular festivals of every kind, both those which appear to have originated in pagan times, and those instituted by the Christian church, on all observances connected with .the important movements of domestic life, as marriages, set,ulture, etc.; on fireside amusements, on superstitions and vulgar errors. What may be called a sub-section of folk-lore has at the same time been amply illustrated' in the Nursery Rhymes, edited by J. O. Halliwell, and the Popular Rhymes of Scotland, edited by Robert Chambers. It is to be observed that, while folk-lore has thus been engaging the attention of literary men, and put beyond risk of oblivion by taking its place in solid books, it is everywhere declining among the people themselves. To this effect, the diffusion of scientific ideas, the disfavor of the clergy for everything connected with the supernatural except religion itself, and the great industrial changes and improvements of the last fifty years, includ ing a greatly increased shifting of the people from one district to another, have all con duced. In the British islands, until recently, no effort had been made to generalize folk-lore for any purpose connected with anthropology, or any other science; but in Germany, as is well known, the learned brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, have turned the ancient simple usages and traditions of the peasant's fireside to excellent account in illustrating remote periods of the national history.