savage ways and ideas, and the myths and usages of the educated classes
in civilised races.  In this extended sense the term 'folklore' will
frequently be used in the following essays.  The idea of the writer is
that mythology cannot fruitfully be studied apart from folklore, while
some knowledge of anthropology is required in both sciences.

The science of Folklore, if we may call it a science, finds everywhere,
close to the surface of civilised life, the remains of ideas as old as
the stone elf-shots, older than the celt of bronze.  In proverbs and
riddles, and nursery tales and superstitions, we detect the relics of a
stage of thought, which is dying out in Europe, but which still exists in
many parts of the world.  Now, just as the flint arrow-heads are
scattered everywhere, in all the continents and isles, and everywhere are
much alike, and bear no very definite marks of the special influence of
race, so it is with the habits and legends investigated by the student of
folklore.  The stone arrow-head buried in a Scottish cairn is like those
which were interred with Algonquin chiefs.  The flints found in Egyptian
soil, or beside the tumulus on the plain of Marathon, nearly resemble the
stones which tip the reed arrow of the modern Samoyed.  Perhaps only a
skilled experience could discern, in a heap of such arrow-heads, the
specimens which are found in America or Africa from those which are
unearthed in Europe.  Even in the products of more advanced industry, we
see early pottery, for example, so closely alike everywhere that, in the
British Museum, Mexican vases have, ere now, been mixed up on the same
shelf with archaic vessels from Greece.  In the same way, if a
superstition or a riddle were offered to a student of folklore, he would
have much difficulty in guessing its _provenance_, and naming the race
from which it was brought.  Suppose you tell a folklorist that, in a
certain country, when anyone sneezes, people say 'Good luck to you,' the
student cannot say a priori what country you refer to, what race you have
in your thoughts.  It may be Florida, as Florida was when first
discovered; it may be Zululand, or West Africa, or ancient Rome, or
Homeric Greece, or Palestine.  In all these, and many other regions, the
sneeze was welcomed as an auspicious omen.  The little superstition is as
widely distributed as the flint arrow-heads.  Just as the object and use
of the arrow-heads became intelligible when we found similar weapons in
actual use among savages, so the salutation to the sneezer becomes
intelligible when we learn that the savage has a good reason for it.  He
thinks the sneeze expels an evil spirit.  Proverbs, again, and riddles
are as universally scattered, and the Wolufs puzzle over the same
devinettes as the Scotch schoolboy or the Breton peasant.  Thus, for
instance, the Wolufs of Senegal ask each other, 'What flies for ever, and
rests never?'--Answer, 'The Wind.'  'Who are the comrades that always
fight, and never hurt each other?'--'The Teeth.'  In France, as we read
in the 'Recueil de Calembours,' the people ask, 'What runs faster than a
horse, crosses water, and is not wet?'--Answer, 'The Sun.'  The Samoans
put the riddle, 'A man who stands between two ravenous fishes?'--Answer,
'The tongue between the teeth.'  Again, 'There are twenty brothers, each
with a hat on his head?'--Answer, 'Fingers and toes, with nails for
hats.'  This is like the French 'un pere a douze fils?'--'l'an.'  A
comparison of M. Rolland's 'Devinettes' with the Woluf conundrums of
Boilat, the Samoan examples in Turner's' Samoa,' and the Scotch enigmas
collected by Chambers, will show the identity of peasant and savage
humour.

A few examples, less generally known, may be given to prove that the
beliefs of folklore are not peculiar to any one race or stock of men.  The
first case is remarkable: it occurs in Mexico and Ceylon--nor are we
aware that it is found elsewhere.  In Macmillan's Magazine {15} is
published a paper by Mrs. Edwards, called 'The Mystery of the Pezazi.'
The events described in this narrative occurred on August 28, 1876, in a
bungalow some thirty miles from Badiella.  The narrator occupied a new
house on an estate called Allagalla.  Her native servants soon asserted
that the place was haunted by a Pezazi.  The English visitors saw and
heard nothing extraordinary till a certain night: an abridged account of
what happened then may be given in the words of Mrs. Edwards:--

   Wrapped in dreams, I lay on the night in question tranquilly sleeping,
   but gradually roused to a perception that discordant sounds disturbed
   the serenity of my slumber.  Loth to stir, I still dozed on, the
   sounds, however, becoming, as it seemed, more determined to make
   themselves heard; and I awoke to the consciousness that they proceeded
   from a belt of adjacent jungle, and resembled the noise that would be
   produced by some person felling timber.

   Shutting my ears to the disturbance, I made no sign, until, with an
   expression of impatience, E--- suddenly started up, when I laid a
   detaining grasp upon his arm, murmuring that there was no need to
   think of rising at present--it must be quite early, and the kitchen
   cooly was doubtless cutting fire-wood in good time.  E--- responded,
   in a tone of slight contempt, that no one could be cutting fire-wood
   at that hour, and the sounds were more suggestive of felling jungle;
   and he then inquired how long I had been listening to them.  Now
   thoroughly aroused, I replied that I had heard the sounds for some
   time, at first confusing them with my dreams, but soon sufficiently
   awakening to the fact that they were no mere phantoms of my
   imagination, but a reality.  During our conversation the noises became
   more distinct and loud; blow after blow resounded, as of the axe
   descending upon the tree, followed by the crash of the falling timber.
   Renewed blows announced the repetition of the operations on another
   tree, and continued till several were devastated.

It is unnecessary to tell more of the tale.  In spite of minute
examinations and close search, no solution of the mystery of the noises,
on this or any other occasion, was ever found.  The natives, of course,
attributed the disturbance to the Pezazi, or goblin.  No one, perhaps,
has asserted that the Aztecs were connected by ties of race with the
people of Ceylon.  Yet, when the Spaniards conquered Mexico, and when
Sahagun (one of the earliest missionaries) collected the legends of the
people, he found them, like the Cingalese, strong believers in the mystic