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The plan was not carried out, but if it had been there would have been little to change; for 'William Tell' reads throughout like the work of one thoroughly familiar with Swiss character, topography and folk-lore. There is not a slip of any importance in the entire play. Of course the conspiring farmers are idealized and their enemies are diabolized; but all this is so in the saga.
But, without enumerating further instances of these savage dream-traditions, which are closely allied with the animistic theories of primitive culture, we would turn to those plants which modern European folk-lore has connected with dreamland. These are somewhat extensive, but a brief survey of some of the most important ones will suffice to indicate their general significance.
"No tempest, good July, Lest the corn look surly." Flowers of this kind are very numerous, and under a variety of forms prevail largely in our own and other countries, an interesting collection of which have been collected by Mr. Swainson in his interesting little volume on "Weather Folk-lore," in which he has given the parallels in foreign countries.
He had a curious and recondite knowledge of the folk-lore of the British Army, and entertained me at times with stories of "Kruger's Own," "The White Shirts," "The Dirty Twelfth," "The Holy Boys," "The Saucy Seventh," having names for the regiments which you will never find in the Army List. In short, he was a survival and in a way a tragic survival. For how many of the old Army are left?
But he soon discovered that the making of literature was not possible in such a luxurious atmosphere, as he did later in Japan, and he returned to the United States. In 1890 he left for the East, never to return. He died at Tokio, September 26, 1904. Hearn had an amazing acquaintance with the folk-lore of many nations. He was perpetually raving over the Finnish, the Voodoo, the Hindu.
It was curious it might have been evident to anyone who was there and took notice that the parts of the two friends had changed of late. When the pair set out on their London social expedition the Professor with his folk-lore was the man deliberately put in front and the leader of the whole enterprise.
We have already met with examples of the store which the primitive mind sets on such vantage grounds. Whatever may be the origin of these beliefs and practices concerning the mistletoe, certain it is that some of them have their analogies in the folk-lore of modern European peasants.
These form quite a class by themselves and though they have come to be in many cases Folk-Lore of European spread, they differ in quality from the ordinary folk-tale which is characterized by its tendency to variation as it passes from mouth to mouth.
Antiquary and miscellaneous writer, for many years a clerk in the secretary's office of Chelsea Hospital, was in 1845 appointed Clerk, and subsequently Deputy Librarian to the House of Lords. Stow's London, and was sec. of the Camden Society. He introduced the word "folk-lore" into the language.
Analogies to the Corn-mother or Barley-mother of ancient Greece have been collected in great abundance by W. Mannhardt from the folk-lore of modern Europe. The following may serve as specimens. In Germany the corn is very commonly personified under the name of the Corn-mother.
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