Folklore as an Historical Science Part 6

It is not my purpose to deal with these matters now, but it is advisable that we should try to understand two things--first, how they have been dealt with by the historian; secondly, their true place in history.

The Greek and Latin authors who have stated of peoples living in Britain many characteristics which do not belong to civilisation or even to the borders of civilisation, range from Pytheas the Greek in the middle of the fourth century before our era down to the Latin poets of the early fifth century anno Domini. They all refer to the British savage. He is cannibalistic, incestuous, naked, possesses his wives in common, lives on wild fruits and not cultivated cereals, indulges in head-hunting, has no settled living-place which can be called a house, and generally betrays the characteristics of pure savagery.[162] Altogether there is a fairly substantial range of material for the formation of a reasonable conception of the condition of savagery in Britain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROMAN SCULPTURED STONE FOUND AT ARNIEBOG, c.u.mBERNAULD, DUMBARTONs.h.i.+RE, SHOWING A NAKED BRITON AS A CAPTIVE]

We need not dwell long upon the earlier of our historians who have neglected or contested the statements of the authorities they use.

They hardly possessed the material for scientific treatment, and personal predilections were the governing factors of any opinion which is expressed. John Milton, in his brave attempt to tell the story of early England, does not so much as allude to these disagreeable points. Hume disdainfully pa.s.ses by the whole subject and practically begins with the Norman conquest. Lappenberg says of the group marriage of the Britons that it "is probably a mere Roman fable."[163] Innes accepts the views of the cla.s.sical authorities and argues from them in his own peculiar way,[164] but Sullivan will have it that the materials afforded from cla.s.sical sources are worthless: "they consist of mere hearsay reports without any sure foundation, and in many cases not in harmony with the results of modern linguistic and archaeological investigations."[165] Neither Turner nor Palgrave has any doubt as to the authority of these early accounts,[166] and Dr. Giles accepts the accounts which he so usefully collected from the original authorities.[167]

The modern historian cannot, however, be so incidentally treated. He lives in the age of the comparative sciences and of anthropological research. He sometimes uses, though in a half-hearted and incomplete fas.h.i.+on, the results of inquirers in these fields of research, but he nowhere deals with the problem fully. His sins are not general, but special. He agrees with one statement of his original authority and disagrees with another, and we are left with a chaos of opinion founded upon no accepted principle. If the earlier historians accepted or rejected historical records without much reason for either course, the later historians have no right to follow them. The terms "savage"

and "barbarian," indulged in by the Greek and Roman writers, cannot be rejected by modern authorities simply because they are too harsh. They cannot be considered merely in the nature of accusations against the standing and position of our ancestors, made by advocates anxious to blacken the national character. Even scholars like Mr. Skene, Mr.

Elton, and Sir John Rhys, though inclined to weigh these pa.s.sages by the light of ethnographic research, throw something like doubt upon the exact extent to which they may be taken as evidence. Mr. Elton, though admitting that the early "romances of travel" afford some evidence as to the habits of our barbarian ancestors, cannot quite get as far in his belief as to think that the account of "the Irish tribes who thought it right to devour their parents" is much more than a traveller's tale.[168] Sir John Rhys is not quite sure that the account by Caesar of the communal marriages of the British is "not a pa.s.sage from some Greek book of imaginary travels among imaginary barbarians which Caesar had in his mind,"[169] though he notes elsewhere that "the vocabulary of the Celts will be searched in vain for a word for son or daughter as distinguished from boy or girl" as a fact of no little negative importance in relation to Caesar's "ugly account;"[170] and he has similar doubts to express, noteworthy among them being the pa.s.sage from Pliny which ill.u.s.trates the G.o.diva story.[171] Mr. Skene lays stress upon the fact that Tacitus "neither alludes to the practice of their staining their bodies with woad nor to the supposed community of women among them;" and he offers some kind of excuse for the Roman evidence as to the tattooing with representations of animals,[172] evidence which Sir John Rhys, too, is chary of accepting in its full sense. Mr. Pearson reluctantly accepts Caesar's account of the group marriage and the human sacrifice of the Druids, but he ignores all else, including the attested cannibalism of the Atticotti, though he mentions that tribe in another connection.[173] Sir James Ramsay agrees that the Britons tattooed their bodies with woad, recognises the fact that their matrimonial customs were polyandric, and that brother-and-sister marriage obtained, and generally accepts the prevalent ideas as to Celtic Druidism with its sacrificial rites and the system of "state wors.h.i.+p."

He rests his views for much of this upon the anthropological evidence in support of it.[174] Mr. Lang on behalf of Scotland, and Dr. Joyce on behalf of Ireland, have their say on the evidence. Mr. Lang seems to accept Caesar's evidence "if correctly reported," throws doubts upon the ethnological value of such customs, and declares roundly that to found theories upon such evidence as archaeology provides "is the province of another science, not of history."[175] Dr. Joyce says that in early Greek and Roman writers there is not much reliable information about Ireland, though he believes them when they talk of students from Britain residing in Ireland and of books existing in Ireland in the fourth century.[176]

This meagre result from the historians seems to me to be most unfortunate. Even when the testimony of early writers is accepted, it is accepted without the necessary filling in which such an acceptance warrants. Bare acceptance does not tell us much. Each recorded fact has a relations.h.i.+p to surrounding facts, should lead us to a.s.sociated facts which, escaping observation by early writers, can nevertheless be restored. In history they are isolated and unconnected, because of the faults of the historian who records them. Anthropologically they belong to a wider grouping, reveal a connection with each other which is otherwise unsuspected, and prepare themselves for treatment on a larger platform. The historian has used them for the unprofitable controversy ranging round the question of early Celtic civilisation, whereas they clearly belong to the history of early man, and even the folklorist does not disdain to cast them on one side when they do not suit his purpose.[177]

It is still more unfortunate that Sir Henry Maine should have sought to enhance the value of his Indian evidence by contrasting it with what he calls "the slippery testimony concerning savages which is gathered from travellers' tales,"[178] and that Mr. Herbert Spencer should have replied to this in an angry note, declaring that he was aware "that in the eyes of most, antiquity gives sacredness to testimony, and that so what were travellers' tales when they were written in Roman days have come in our days to be regarded as of higher authority than like tales written by recent or living travellers."[179] The scorn pa.s.sed upon "travellers' tales," the application of the term "romance" to the early descriptions of voyages, have done the same amount of mischief to these early chapters of history as the constant disbelief in the value of tradition has done to the testimony of folklore.

Now I do not recall these controversies, or lay stress upon what appear to me to be the shortcomings of the historian and folklorist in their relations.h.i.+p to each other, for the purpose of reawakening old antagonisms. I have merely selected a few ill.u.s.trations of the present position of the subject in order that it may be seen how essential it is to proceed on other lines. All the items which have formed the subject of dispute, together with others which have escaped attention--items which have found their way into history by accident, which are by nature fragmentary and isolated, which do not connect up with anything that is distinctively Celtic or Teutonic, and which do not apparently fit in with any standard common to themselves--must command attention if only because they alone cannot be cut out of history when items standing side by side with them are allowed to remain, and in the end it can, I think, be shown that they command attention because of their inherent value.

The method of investigation as to the importance and significance of these earliest historical records must be anthropological. They are in point of fact so much anthropological data relating to Britain. It is no use calling them history, and then defining that history as bad history simply because as history the recorded facts do not appear to be credible. As a matter of fact they belong to the prehistory period of Britain, and to test their value scientific methods are required.

In the first place, anthropology shows that there is no _prima facie_ necessity for calling them Celtic, thus identifying them with that portion of our ancestry which is Celtic in race; for there is evidence of a non-Celtic race existing in prehistoric times, and existing down to within historic times, if not to modern times. Mr. Willis Bund has recently summarised the evidence from archaeology, philology, and tradition as it appears in a particularly valuable local study of ancient Cardigans.h.i.+re, stating it "to be agreed that there was more than one race of early inhabitants, and two of the sources say that there was an original race and at least two distinct races of invaders," and further, "that whoever the original inhabitants were they were not Celts."[180] These original inhabitants, who were not Celts, have left their remains in the barrows and megalithic monuments which still exist in various parts of the country, and anthropologists show that they have not entirely disappeared from among the race distinctions observable among the people of these islands. If it is possible to proceed from this to another stage, and to show from the British evidence what Mr. Risley has so well ill.u.s.trated from the Indian evidence, namely, that gradations of race types as shown by anthropometrical indices correspond with gradations of social precedence and social organisation,[181] it may yet be possible to prove that the people who were not Celts were the people with whom originated those recorded customs and beliefs which are rejected as too savage for the Celt. Unfortunately, we know nothing about them, except the isolated sc.r.a.ps which are to be picked up from the early historians. This compels us to turn to other sources of information, and when we do this we find that British folklore preserves in traditional custom, rite, belief, and folk-tale, parallels to each and every item of savagery mentioned by the early historians of Britain; and further, that anthropology shows clearly enough that among the customs and beliefs of primitive races there are to be found parallels to every item of custom and belief recorded of early Britain. This gets rid of one of our greatest difficulties, and disposes of Dr.

Sullivan's unwarranted a.s.sertion to the contrary (_ante_, p. 113). The recorded customs and beliefs of early Britain are proved by this means not to be impossible or improbable factors in the elements of the British prehistoric race. It will not be possible to term them inventions of romance or of false testimony, simply on the ground that they are not found elsewhere. On the contrary it will, I think, be difficult to resist the conclusion that inventions such as these, covering a wide and ascertained area of sociological and early religious development, could hardly have been made by historians having the limited range of knowledge possessed by the native and cla.s.sical writers who are responsible for the facts. It is an easy, but not a satisfactory method of criticism to declare what is not to one's liking to be invention and romance, and it has until late years been difficult to combat such an argument. The battle has raged round wordy disputes, the merits of which are governed by the abilities of the respective disputants; that this is no longer possible is due to the fact that there have entered into the fray the methods and results of folklore which prevent the terms invention and romance from being applied, except where there is good independent reason for their use.

I have now dealt with all the points which appear to be necessary in order to show the inherent relations.h.i.+p of folklore to history, and I have shown causes for resisting the claims of mythology to appropriate what it chooses of folklore, and then to reject all the rest from consideration. I have dealt (1) with examples of local traditions and hero-traditions, in their relation to history and historical conditions; (2) with the folk-tale in its retention of details of early historic conditions, and of the picture of early tribal organisation, and in that its structure is based upon the events of savage social conceptions; (3) with the early laws and rules of tribal society preserved by tradition and accepted in historical times; (4) with the claims of mythology to interpret the meaning of folk-tales, and the reasons for rejecting this claim; and (5) with the treatment by historians of statements by cla.s.sical writers as to the condition of the peoples inhabiting Britain before the dawn of civilisation. I think it will be admitted that, without pretending in any way to have exhausted the evidence, or even to have thoroughly comprehended and satisfactorily stated it under each of these heads, a very considerable claim has been made out for the historical value of folklore. If so much has been gained it will rest with folklorists to pursue investigations on these lines, and it will remain with the historian to consider the results wherever his research leads him into domains where the evidence of folklore is obtainable.

It will be seen that the problems which the two sciences, history and folklore, have to solve in conjunction are not a few and that they are extremely complex. They cannot be solved if history and folklore are separated; they may be solved if the professors in each work together, both recognising what there is of value in the other. History in its earliest stages is either entirely dependent upon foreign authorities, or it has to follow the practice of the earlier and unscientific historian and to deny that there is any history, or at all events any history worth recording, before the advent, perhaps the accidental advent, of an historian on native ground. History in its later stages is dependent upon the personal tastes or ability of each historian for the record of events and facts. Folklore in its earliest stages has brought down from the most ancient times memories of ancient polity, faith, custom, rite, and thought. In its later stages it has preserved custom, rite, and belief amid the attacks of the progressive civilisation which has been developed, and it has clothed heroes of later times with the well-worn trappings of those of old.

Combined history and folklore can restore much of the picture of early times, and can work through the fulness of later times with some degree of success. There is needed for this work, however, a clear conception of the position properly held by both sciences, together with established rules of research. This is more particularly needed in the department of folklore. I do not pretend to be able to formulate these rules. In the subjects dealt with in this chapter I have indicated a few of the points which must be raised, and my object will be in the remaining chapters to set forth some of the conditions which it appears to me necessary to consider in connection with the problems with which folklore is concerned as one of the historical sciences.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr. Kemble gives an important ill.u.s.tration of this proposition in his _Saxons in England_, i. 331.

[2] I would refer the reader to Prof. York Powell's brilliant lecture on "A Survey of Modern History," printed in his biography by Mr. Oliver Elton, ii. 1-13, for an admirable summary of this view.

[3] _View of the State of Ireland_, 1595, p. 478.

[4] a.s.ser's _Life of Alfred_, by W. H. Stevenson, 262.

[5] It is not worth while unduly emphasising this point, but the peculiar habit of cla.s.sing fictional literature as folklore and thereupon condemning the value of tradition is very prevalent. Mr.

Nutt, in dealing with the Troy stories in British history, adopts this method, and denies the existence of historic tradition on the strength of it, _Folklore_, xii. 336-9.

[6] This expression was recently allowed in our old friend _Notes and Queries_ in a singularly unsuitable case, 10th ser. vii. 344.

[7] I am not sure this is always the fault of those who are not folklorists. I recently came across a dictum of one of the most distinguished folklorists, Mr. Andrew Lang, which is certainly much in the same direction. "As a rule tradition is the noxious ivy that creeps about historical truth, and needs to be stripped off with a ruthless hand. Tradition is a collection of venerable and romantic blunders. But a tradition which clings to a permanent object in the landscape, a tall stone, a gra.s.sy, artificial tumulus, or even an old tree, may be unexpectedly correct."--_Morning Post_, 2 November, 1906.

[8] It is worth while referring to Mr. MacRitchie's article in _Trans.

International Folklore Congress_ on the historical aspect of Folklore; but Professor York Powell has said the strongest word in its favour in his all too short address as President of the Folklore Society, see _Folklore_, xv. 12-23.

[9] Chapter xi. of Tylor's _Early History of Mankind_.

[10] Spenser, _View of the State of Ireland_, 1595 (Morley reprint), 77.

[11] Perhaps the most remarkable testimony to the foundation of the folk-tale and ballad in the events of history is to be found in a statement made to the _Tribune_, 14 September, 1906, by Mr. Mitra, once proprietor and editor of the _Deccan Post_, with regard to the agitation against the part.i.tion of Bengal into two provinces. Mr. Mitra deliberately states that "the best test of finding out Hindu feeling towards the British Government is to see whether there are any ballads or nursery rhymes in the Bengali language against the British. You can have it from me, and I challenge contradiction, that there is no single ballad or nursery rhyme in the Bengali language which is against the British." This is where the soul of the people speaks out.

[12] It is printed, and I have used this print, in Blomefield's _History of Norfolk_ (1769), iii. 506, from which source I quote the facts concerning it. Sir William Dugdale's account goes on to connect it with a monument in the church, but this part of the local version is to be considered presently.

[13] See the _Diary_ printed by the Surtees Society, p. 220.

[14] The legend was also printed in that popular folk-book, _New Help to Discourse_, so often printed between 1619 and 1656, and Mr. Axon transcribed this version for the _Antiquary_, xi. 167-168; and see my notes in _Gent. Mag. Lib. English Traditions_, 332-336.

[15] I happen to possess the original cutting of this version preserved among my great-grandfather's papers.

[16] These words are, "I am not a Bigot in Dreams, yet I cannot help acknowledging the Relation of the above made a strong Impression on me."

[17] _Leeds Mercury_, January 3rd, 1885, communicated by Mr. Wm.

Grainge of Harrogate.

[18] Mr. Axon says it is current in Lancas.h.i.+re and in Cornwall, _Antiquary_, xi. 168; Sir John Rhys gives two Welsh versions in his _Celtic Folklore_, ii. 458-462, 464-466; a Yorks.h.i.+re version in ballad form is to be found in Castillo's _Poems in the North Yorks.h.i.+re Dialect_ (1878), under the t.i.tle of "T' Lealholm Chap's lucky dreeam,"

_Antiquary_, xii. 121; an Ayrs.h.i.+re variant relates to the building of Dundonald Castle, and is given in Chambers's _Pop. Rhymes of Scotland_, 236.

[19] Blomefield, _Hist. of Norfolk_, iii. 507, suggests that the animal carving represents a bear. There is nothing to confirm this and readers may judge for themselves by reference to the ill.u.s.trations, which are from photographs taken in Swaffham Church.

[20] I discussed the details in the _Antiquary_, vol. x. pp. 202-205.

[21] This story was communicated by "W.F." to the _St. James's Gazette_, March 15th, 1888. Its continuation, in order to point a moral, does not belong to the real story, which is contained in the part I have quoted.

[22] _Saga Library_, _Heimskringla_, iii. 126.

[23] These have been collected and commented upon with his usual learning and research, by Mr. Hartland in the _Antiquary_, xv. 45-48.

Blomefield, in his _History of Norfolk_, iii. 507, points out that the same story is found in Johannes Fungerus' _Etymologicon Latino-Graec.u.m_, pp. 1110-1111, though it is here narrated of a man at Dort in Holland, and in _Histoires admirables de nostre temps_, par Simon Goulart, Geneva, 1614, iii. p. 366. Professor Cowell, in the third volume of the _Cambridge Antiquarian Society Transactions_, p. 320, has printed a remarkable parallel of the story which is to be found in the great Persian metaphysical and religious poem called the Masnavi, written by Jalaluddin, who died about 1260. J. Grimm discussed these treasure-on-the-bridge stories in _Kleinere Schriften_, iii. 414-428, and did not attach much value to them.

[24] It is not unimportant in this connection to find that London itself a.s.sumes an exceptional place in tradition. Mr. Frazer notes a German legend about London, _Golden Bough_ (2nd ed.), iii. 235; Pausanias, v. 292. Mr. Dale has drawn attention to the Anglo-Saxon att.i.tude towards Roman buildings in his _National Life in Early English Literature_, 35.

[25] See _Archaeologia_, xxv. 600; xxix. 147; xl. 54; _Arch. Journ._, i.

112.

[26] I have worked this point out in my _Governance of London_.

[27] Bishop Kennett, quoted in _Notes and Queries_, fourth series, ix.

258.

[28] Mommsen's account of the Pontifex Maximus should be consulted, _Hist. Rome_, i. 178; and _cf._ Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, 114, 147, 214.

[29] Mrs. Gomme, _Traditional Games_, i. 347.