FOLK-LORE, the science which embraces all that relates to ancient observances and cus toms, to the notions, beliefs, traditions, super stitions and prejudices of the common people. Gomme's divisions are (1) Traditional nar ratives: (a) folk-tales, (b) hero tales, (c) ballads and songs, (d) place legends; (2) traditional customs: (a) local customs, (b) festival customs, (c) ceremonial customs, (d) games; (3) superstitions and beliefs: (a) witchcraft, (b) astrology, (c) superstitious practices and fancies; (4) folk-speech: (a) popular sayings, (b) popular nomenclature, (c) proverbs, (d) jingle rhymes, riddles, etc.
Folk-lore has been observed and noted by countless writers of early days, but it was not till after the beginning of the 19th century that its value for the elucidation of the social history of mankind had become apparent to thinkers and its systematic study seriously begun. Meantime the reawakening to natural poetry and to the beauty of free emotional ex pression in literature, which lay at the founda tion of what it is usual to call Romanticism, had already commenced even' in the 18th cen tury. The publication of Percy's 'Reliques of Ancient English Poetry' (1765) had given a powerful impulse to Scott and others in Eng land, to Herder and to Arnim and Brentano in Germany, who found a rich wealth of tradi tional poetry, the poetic value of 'which they fortunately had the eyes to see. But the study of folk-songs really began with Scott's (Min strelsy of the Scottish Border' (1802-03). It was perhaps an advantage rather than a disad vantage that the first worker in this new field was but the folk-lorist unawares and mere great poet and romancer of genius that he was; for our folk-poetry would never have enriched and permanently influenced all later English liter ature but for its own intrinsic and genuine poetic quality, any more than our detached folk-lore facts would ever have risen above the dignity of the whimsical pastime of an idle hour but for their inherent though unsuspected faculty for throwing light backward on the his tory of human civilization. All, or nearly all, the facts of comparative mythology are to be found in folk-belief in solution; a great many facts of folk-belief are to be found in compara tive mythology crystallized. The facts are es sentially the same in both cases, but the study deals with them at different stages.
First in importance of the collections of material is still the earliest, the 'Children and House Tales' (1812-14) of the brothers Grimm (q.v). Grimm's (German Mythology' (1835) is still unequaled in the range of its erudition and in the systematic thoroughness with which the mythology and superstitions of the ancient Teutons are traced back to the dawn of direct evidence and downward in decay and diminution to the popular tales, traditions and phrases in which they still unconsciously survive. These
two works of Grimm created a school, whose abundant labors later folklorists have entered into, while they have enlarged the horizon of the science, because the stamp of soundness and sufficiency so far as it goes is impressed in all the work of Grimm and his successors, of whom, in Germany, the most eminent were Kuhn, Mannhardt, J. W. Wolf and W. Schwartz. To the English-speaking world Max Mfiller's essays revealed a new world of un dreamt-of affinities and the combined charm of 'their wide learning and rare powers of exposition converted every reader to a theory which, as has been seen, is only now being displaced by another with a sounder basis of real philosophy and facts. Since then the study of folk-lore has become fashionable, indeed almost an article of patriotism, and societies have been formed in most countries to further its study. Of these the most im portant is still the Folk-lore Society of Eng land, established in 1878, with its official organ, the Folk-lore Journal. The American Folk lore Society was instituted at Cambridge, Mass., early in 18$8: (1) For the collection of the fast-vanishing remains of folk-lore in Amer ica, namely: (a) Relics of old English folk lore (ballads, tales, superstitions, dialect, etc.); (b) lore of negroes in the Southern States of the Union; (c) lore of the Indian tribes of North America (myths, tales, etc.) ; (d) lore of French Canada, Mexico, etc. (2) For the study of the general subject and the publica tion of results of special studies in this de partment. The journal of the American so ciety has amply justified its existence by series of articles of striking originality and value.
Folk-lore, though it takes cognizance of many apparently trivial matters, is of great im portance in the Science of comparative mythology and helps to throw much light on the relationships between races and on the origin and development of religious beliefs and cere monies. It is therefore of great assistance to the ethnologist, the sociologist and the his torian, as well as to the student of compara tive mythology and of the science of religion. It has attracted much attention in recent times. See ASTROLOGY ; FABLE; FAIRY TALES ; LEGEND; MYTHOLOGY; SUPERSTITION; WITCH CRAFT.
Bibliography.— Aubrey, 'Miscellanies' (1696) ; Browne, (Pseudodoxia Epidemica' (1646) ; Brand,
Antiquities' ; Cham bers, (Book of Days' ; Cox,
Introduction to Folk-lore' (1895); Gomme,