'Hottentot Mythology' is a criticism of the philological method, applied
to savage myth.

'Fetichism and the Infinite,' is a review of Mr. Max Muller's theory that
a sense of the Infinite is the germ of religion, and that Fetichism is
secondary, and a corruption.  This essay also contains a defence of the
_evidence_ on which the anthropological method relies.

The remaining essays are studies of the 'History of the Family,' and of
'Savage Art.'

The essay on 'Savage Art' is reprinted, by the kind permission of Messrs.
Cassell & Co., from two numbers (April and May, 1882) of the Magazine of
Art.  I have to thank the editors and publishers of the Contemporary
Review, the Cornhill Magazine, and Fraser's Magazine, for leave to
republish 'The Early History of the Family,' 'The Divining Rod,' and
'Star Myths,' and 'The Kalevala.'  A few sentences in 'The Bull-Roarer,'
and 'Hottentot Mythology,' appeared in essays in the Saturday Review, and
some lines of 'The Method of Folklore' in the Guardian.  To the editors
of those journals also I owe thanks for their courteous permission to
make this use of my old articles.

To Mr. E. B. Tylor and Mr. W. R. S. Ralston I must express my gratitude
for the kindness with which they have always helped me in all
difficulties.

I must apologise for the controversial matter in the volume.  Controversy
is always a thing to be avoided, but, in this particular case, when a
system opposed to the prevalent method has to be advocated, controversy
is unavoidable.  My respect for the learning of my distinguished
adversaries is none the less great because I am not convinced by their
logic, and because my doubts are excited by their differences.

Perhaps, it should be added, that these essays are, so to speak, only
flint-flakes from a neolithic workshop.  This little book merely
skirmishes (to change the metaphor) in front of a much more methodical
attempt to vindicate the anthropological interpretation of myths.  But
lack of leisure and other causes make it probable that my 'Key to All
Mythologies' will go the way of Mr. Casaubon's treatise.




THE METHOD OF FOLKLORE.


After the heavy rain of a thunderstorm has washed the soil, it sometimes
happens that a child, or a rustic, finds a wedge-shaped piece of metal or
a few triangular flints in a field or near a road.  There was no such
piece of metal, there were no such flints, lying there yesterday, and the
finder is puzzled about the origin of the objects on which he has
lighted.  He carries them home, and the village wisdom determines that
the wedge-shaped piece of metal is a 'thunderbolt,' or that the bits of
flint are 'elf-shots,' the heads of fairy arrows.  Such things are still
treasured in remote nooks of England, and the 'thunderbolt' is applied to
cure certain maladies by its touch.

As for the fairy arrows, we know that even in ancient Etruria they were
looked on as magical, for we sometimes see their points set, as amulets,
in the gold of Etruscan necklaces.  In Perugia the arrowheads are still
sold as charms.  All educated people, of course, have long been aware
that the metal wedge is a celt, or ancient bronze axe-head, and that it
was not fairies, but the forgotten peoples of this island who used the
arrows with the tips of flint.  Thunder is only so far connected with
them that the heavy rains loosen the surface soil, and lay bare its long
hidden secrets.

There is a science, Archaeology, which collects and compares the material
relics of old races, the axes and arrow-heads.  There is a form of study,
Folklore, which collects and compares the similar but immaterial relics
of old races, the surviving superstitions and stories, the ideas which
are in our time but not of it.  Properly speaking, folklore is only
concerned with the legends, customs, beliefs, of the Folk, of the people,
of the classes which have least been altered by education, which have
shared least in progress.  But the student of folklore soon finds that
these unprogressive classes retain many of the beliefs and ways of
savages, just as the Hebridean people use spindle-whorls of stone, and
bake clay pots without the aid of the wheel, like modern South Sea
Islanders, or like their own prehistoric ancestors. {11a}  The student of
folklore is thus led to examine the usages, myths, and ideas of savages,
which are still retained, in rude enough shape, by the European
peasantry.  Lastly, he observes that a few similar customs and ideas
survive in the most conservative elements of the life of educated
peoples, in ritual, ceremonial, and religious traditions and myths.
Though such remains are rare in England, we may note the custom of
leading the dead soldier's horse behind his master to the grave, a relic
of days when the horse would have been sacrificed. {11b}  We may observe
the persistence of the ceremony by which the monarch, at his coronation,
takes his seat on the sacred stone of Scone, probably an ancient fetich
stone.  Not to speak, here, of our own religious traditions, the old vein
of savage rite and belief is found very near the surface of ancient Greek
religion.  It needs but some stress of circumstance, something answering
to the storm shower that reveals the flint arrow-heads, to bring savage
ritual to the surface of classical religion.  In sore need, a human
victim was only too likely to be demanded; while a feast-day, or a
mystery, set the Greeks dancing serpent-dances or bear-dances like Red
Indians, or swimming with sacred pigs, or leaping about in imitation of
wolves, or holding a dog-feast, and offering dog's flesh to the gods.
{12}  Thus the student of folklore soon finds that he must enlarge his
field, and examine, not only popular European story and practice, but