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CANADA 
 
 NATIONAL LIBRARY 
 BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE 
 
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 7 / 
 
 OPPORTUNITIES 
 
 FOR 
 
 THE STUDY OF FOLK-LORE IN CANADA. 
 
 • t 
 
 NEW era for mythology 
 began with the revelation 
 that Sanst^iit was akin to 
 the Aryan tonguesof Europe. 
 Familiar nursery tales like 
 Cinderella, admired stories 
 of heroism like William 
 Tell, pathetic domestic dramas like Beth- 
 gelert, were traced in varying forms 
 through all the members of the wide- 
 spread Aryan family and even in some 
 cases beyond the Aryan pale. 
 
 It is only within quite recent times, 
 however, that the study of these legendary 
 growths has been reduced to a system. 
 To ensure that inquiry shall be fruitful, 
 the first requisite is a fair division of the 
 manifold task, and for that end such or- 
 gani/cations as that to which we belong 
 have been established in almost every 
 country of Europe as well as in the East 
 and in the New World. Most of these or- 
 ganizations publish their transactions in 
 some kind of periodical. In France, for 
 instance, there is La Melusine (so called 
 from the most renowned of French fairies, 
 whose story is so strangely interlinked 
 with that of the House of Lusignan). 
 La Tradition, La Revue de Traditions Popxi- 
 laires. La Revue Celtique are also pub- 
 lished in France and the list might be 
 greatly extended. In Germany there is 
 an organ called '* At The Fountain Head," 
 another, the "Journal of German An- 
 tiquity," and so Italy, the Dutch and 
 Flemish Netherlands. Spain and Portugal, 
 the Scandinavian, Slavonic, Hellenic, 
 Hungarian and other communities have 
 quarterlies or monthlies wholly or partial- 
 ly devoted to what is now well known by 
 the English term folk-lore. 
 
 Of all these organisations those of the 
 F"rench and British races have for us the 
 
 * The paper here condensed was prepared for the first 
 meeting of the Montreal Branch of the American Folk- 
 Lore Society, which w. s held at the house of Mrs 
 Kohert Keid, Montreal, on the 2,sth of April last. 
 The Montreal Branch was iuauRurated on the 6th 
 of April, Mr W. W. Newell, secretary of the parent 
 society, having lome from Cambridge, Mass , to 
 deliver an address on the occasion. The officers of the 
 Montreal Branch are Mr H Beaugrand. ex-Mayor of 
 Montreal, president; Prof I) V. P-jnhallow, McGill 
 University, vice-president ; Dr. L. H. Frechette, iMurfal 
 of the French Academy, ind vice president ; Mr. John 
 Kcade, .secretary ; Mr. I, Huot, treasurer, t.sdiescom- 
 mittee : Mrs. Beaugrand, Mrs R Reid, Mrs Penhallow, 
 Mrs. Frechette, Miss Van Home, Miss HcCallum 
 
 most immediate interest. If we were to 
 take a hasty survey of what has been 
 achieved in the whole vast and varied field 
 of folk-lore, we should find that French 
 inquirers from Raynouard to M. Ploix 
 have been neither idle nor without re- 
 ward. The investigation of early Pro- 
 ven<,'al history and literature, even before 
 folk-lore had name or recognition among 
 the departments of research, brought to 
 light a wealth of important facts relating 
 to the whole cycle of Romance, Teutonic 
 and Celtic mythus. At the present day, 
 besides the journals already specified there 
 is hardly a district in F" ranee that has not 
 its laborious local society, while, on the 
 other hand, France is the headquarters of 
 that Monde Latin which stretches from 
 Europe to the Black Sea, occupies scat- 
 tered strongholds in Africa and Asia, is 
 represented by over two millions of peo- 
 ple in North America, and is mistress of 
 the centre and south of this hemisphere. 
 To France also belongs the honour of 
 having organized the first international 
 congress of folk-lores. The congress 
 of Paris in 1889 was followed by that of 
 London in i8gi.* 
 
 The English Folk- Lore Society was 
 founded in 1878, for the purpose of col- 
 lecting and preserving the fast perishing 
 relics of folk-lore in English and other 
 communities, and in the reasonable assur- 
 ance that corporate action would accom- 
 plish results which isolated efforts, how- 
 ever strenuous, could not he expected to 
 yield. At the same time it was on the 
 harvests of valuable discovery which had 
 been reaped by the earnest and well 
 directed efforts of individual research tha 
 the society based its hopes, when such 
 efforts should be united and systematized. 
 
 The term folk-lore was first, it is .said, 
 suggested by Mr. Thorns (over the sig- 
 nature of "Ambrose Merton") in the 
 Athemeum in the year 1846, and the ex- 
 tent to which it has been adopted both 
 within and beyond the limits of the Eng- 
 lish-speaking race, is ample recognition 
 of its many-sided meaning. It includes 
 
 ♦Outline reports of both congresses were published in 
 Fiitk-L»rt and in the Jounia/ n/' .hnei lain J-'oliLoie, 
 The volume containing a full account of last year's 
 congre.ss is now in press and will shortly be issued. 
 
300 
 
 3 
 
 / ^ 2 THE DOMINION ILL USTRA TED MONTIIL Y. 
 
 folk-tales, liero-lales, traditional ballads 
 and songs, place legends and traditions, 
 goblindom, astrology, \vi*».licraft, super- 
 stitions connected with material things, 
 local festival and ceremonial customs, 
 games, jingles, nursery rhymes, riddles, 
 proverbs, old saws, nicknames, place 
 rhymes and sayings, and folk-lore etymo- 
 logy. " In short, folk-lore has now been 
 extended to include the whole vast back- 
 ground y.^'i popular thought, feeling anu 
 usage, out of which and in contrast to 
 which have been developed all the indi- 
 vidual proelucts of human activity which 
 go to make up what is called history." 
 (Fo/k-foiv, March, iSgo). 
 
 Small at lirst, the membership of the 
 society has now increased to a roll of 
 more than 400. It is also emphatically a 
 w irking society, as its publications dur- 
 ing the thirteen years of its existence 
 amply prove. These consist of five 
 volumes o'i the Folk-Lore Rcconi, seven 
 volumes of the Folk-Lore Journal and two 
 volumes o'i Folk-/.on\ a quarterly incor- 
 porating the Folk-Lore Journal and the 
 Are/ucoloffical Review, and more than a 
 do/en monographs all of exceptional 
 interest on British and foreign folk-lore. 
 In order that there might be among the 
 members a thorough and accurate under- 
 standing of what was meant to be in- 
 cluded under the name, it was deemed 
 well that a manual setting forth the aims, 
 comprehensiveness and limitations I'f 
 folk-lore should be prepared and printed 
 for the use oi enquirers and collectors. 
 .Mr. (i. I., (lonime, now president oi the 
 Society, was entrusted with the task 
 which was completed in the fall of iSqo.* 
 
 1 would now ask attention to an or- 
 ganization nearer to >ur own doors — an 
 organization which, duringits brief career, 
 has slunvn remarkable v italiiy and fruit- 
 lulness the American {-"olk-I.ore Societv'. 
 I'"ive years ago a circular letter, drawn 
 up bv Mr. W. W. N'ewell, of Cambridge, 
 .Mass. and subscribed by seventeen names, 
 was addressed to a number oi persons. 
 Ihat it was not written in vain was shown 
 by a second letter bearing 104 signatures, 
 representing various parts in the I'nited 
 States and a few districts in Canada. On 
 the 4th of January, iSScS, the .American 
 Folk-Lore Society was organized at Cam- 
 bridge. Its main object was stated to 
 be the publication of a scientific journal 
 designed for the collection of relics of old 
 
 ' * prtlU liiiii; review of the " Haiirthook of Folk- 
 I.ori'" appeaieil iu tile U<vMiNMoN Ii.i.tSTKATi.i) for 
 Decembei htll. iScjii. 
 
 I-inglish folk-lore (ballads, tales, dialects, 
 etc.); the folk-lore of negroes in the 
 Southern States; that of the Indian 
 tribes (myths, tales, traditions, etc.) ; the 
 folk-lore oi l''rench Canada, .Mexico, 
 Central .America and other parts of the 
 New World ; and for the study o'i such 
 other branches of the subject as the 
 complex popula'ions ol this continent 
 might afi"ord opportunities for pursuing. 
 
 .\ few of the members oi the .American 
 society are also members of the luiglish 
 society and some of them ha^e enriched 
 Kuropean folk-lore with important con- 
 tributions. The foijr published volumes 
 of ihc Journal of American Folk-Lore con- 
 tain ample proof that, in their forecast of 
 the richness and variety oi the field to be 
 explored the founders oi the society were 
 not mistaken. To a certain extent, that 
 field (or, at least, such portion of it as 
 lies within the limits of the Cnited States) 
 corresponds with the area which the Cana- 
 dian folk-lorist, confining himself to his 
 own patrimony, is invited to traverse. 
 The traditions of people of Loyalist 
 stock in Canada are, for instance, the tra- 
 ditions of New luiglanders, descendants 
 of Dutch or Uritisli New ^'orkers, of 
 Pennsylvania (iermans, of Knglish Quak- 
 ers or of \'irginians, modifi.."d by the ex- 
 periences of three or four generations of 
 a new environment. This new environ- 
 ment, again, is composed of various 
 elements, from all parts ol the I'nited 
 Kingdom and from the continent oi 
 Kurope. There are counties in Canada 
 in which people of (ierman origin form 
 the great majority, as in Lunenburg, 
 (N.S.), North N'o'rk, Welland, .Monck, 
 North and South Waterloo, (Ont.), Mar- 
 quette, .Man. The I'rench have the ma- 
 jority in Richmond, N.S., in Kent and 
 Ciloucester, N.H., in every county in 
 Quebec save Stanstead, Hrome and Pon- 
 tiac. and in Provencher, Man. So there 
 are counties in which the Scotch, the Irish, 
 the iMiglish or the aboriginal element has 
 predominance. Sometimes, the excess is 
 not very great, in others it is considerable. 
 In this province, for example, there are 
 comities and even clusters of comities 
 that are almost wholly Trench. 
 
 It is in these communities that the folk- 
 lorist has best scope for fruitful inquiry. 
 Of no population of its extent, indeed, 
 are the antecedents so accessible as are 
 those of French Canada. We know 
 when and whence each successive instal- 
 ment of its wr/^j-zV/cv arrived in the country, 
 and, with the aid of Mgr. Tanguays 
 
 I 
 

 THE STLDY O/JVLK LORE IN CANADA. 
 
 :oi 
 
 Ifolk- 
 luiry. 
 Ileed, 
 are 
 tnow 
 [stal- 
 itry, 
 ays 
 
 A/Vrr r/'(V could, with some pains, trace 
 back every household in a parish or dis- 
 trict to its i(Uh century cradle. 
 
 A few fi^'ures will ^i\ e a tjener.il notion 
 of the old-world sources o^ New !•" ranee. 
 Down U) the year i<)4i there had come 
 from Normandy ^7 colonists ; from 
 Perche, jS ; from Heauce, Maine, Picardy, 
 Champagne, Brittany, Poitou, etc., 20; 
 and from places unascertained, \2. Be- 
 tween ib4i and if)t)6 there arrived from 
 Normandy, ().S ; from Perche, 29 ; from 
 .Auiiis, 27 ; trom Poitou, 33 ; from Maine, 
 14; from Brittany, 13 ; from Anjou, 11 ; 
 from Picardy, b ; from Beavice, <i ; from 
 Paris, 18 ; from Brie, 7 ; from Saintoni»-, 
 13 ; from Rhe and Oleren, 8 ; from 
 Guienne, 3 ; from Provence, 3. 
 
 These figures indicate that, it we ex- 
 cept the emigration from l.a Rochelle 
 and the adjacent country, only a mere 
 handful of the pioneers of French Canada 
 hailed from south of the Loire. .\ line 
 drawn fron-, the mouth of that river to 
 the north-wtst corner of the Reichsland 
 would embrace nearly all the territory 
 that supplied the colony with the bulk of 
 its early settlers. It will also be observed 
 that the Celtic element of Bretagne is by 
 no means so large as it is generally sup- 
 posed to be. it is worth while, in view 
 of these facts, to examine the list of sur- 
 names explained in the introduction to 
 Mgr. Tanguay's Z)/'<7/«;/««m' Getivalogique 
 and io notice how many of them (not for- 
 getting the author's own) are of Teutonic 
 origin. If one of our artists would take 
 his stand near the entrance of i le of our 
 parish churches on a Sunday ( / holiday, 
 he would probably become aware of some 
 features of French-Canadian Romanism 
 that have escaped the sharp eyes of our 
 polemical writers — 1 mean the considerable 
 proportion of f.iir complexions, testifying 
 to a northern origin. The alVinity be- 
 tween the stocks to which the two main 
 sections of our people may be respective- 
 ly traced is, indeed, as Mr. Sandford 
 Fleming has pointed out in a most in- 
 teresting paper — read before the Royal 
 Society, much closer than it is generally 
 believed to be. 
 
 What traditions, folk-songs, social and 
 household usages that bear the stamp of 
 race or environment, did these Normans 
 Picards, Percherons, Poitevins and Main- 
 ards, bring with them from the France of 
 Louis the Thirteenth and Louis le Grand ? 
 What survivals do we find in the spoken 
 speech of their descendants of the French 
 that was in use in court and camp, among 
 
 the peasantry and sailors of the day ^^i the 
 frninii moil an/ II I- i Something has been 
 i\ox\Q by way of answer to these inquiries 
 but, save in a few instances, il was 
 casually and not o'i express purpose that 
 the data a portion of which is now so 
 valuable were collected, nor has ;iny 
 attempt been made lo classify the re- 
 sults attained. Even the we;ither-lore, 
 which we find scatti^red througli the 
 almanacs, seems to turn up in scraps and 
 by chance, without any indication of its 
 source, and there is a perfect sylva of 
 French Canadian plant-lore, some of it 
 most curious, and full y\i the pathos of folk- 
 poetry, that has never yet been garnered. 
 Mr. Ciagnon did good service when he 
 gave us a hundred out of the multitude of 
 cluuisoiis that are echoed from the (iulf 
 of St. Lawrence to theliulfof Mexico, 
 from New Fngland to the Mississippi and 
 on to the Pacific Slope, wherever a i'nnti- 
 dicn <»r/Y//// follows his fancy as pioneer or 
 trapper or (in no mocking sense) as 
 a knight of industry. The strange thing 
 about them is that so many of these 
 songs are of the South, even as far as 
 Provence. 
 
 Let us now turn for a moment to our 
 British population. In the cities of the 
 new world, fashion does not favour the 
 conservation of what is old. ^'oung 
 people have not to forget what they 
 do not learn. .Kit in the rural districts, 
 as Mr. Ca.uiift" has described them in 
 his "Country Life in Canada Fifty ^'ears 
 Ago," old customs and ideas still survive, 
 and in both our Saxon and Celtic 
 communities may be found precious frag- 
 ments of almost every class of f'Jk-lore 
 that flourishes, or once flourished, within 
 the four seas. 
 
 But it is not only among the trans- 
 planted Saxons and (Jael and the children 
 of L(i lielle frame that the Canadian folk- 
 lorist may find a harvest. There are, be- 
 sides people of (ierman stock, who num- 
 ber over a quarter of a million, little 
 colonies of Scandinavians, of Netherland- 
 ers, of Icelanders, of Mennonites, of 
 Manxmen, of Channel Islanders, of Hun- 
 garians, of Roumanians, of Chinese, so 
 that, whether one lives in older or in 
 newer Canada, in town or in country, 
 there is opportunity for observation and 
 the collection ot data. 
 
 But it is really among the aborigines that 
 the richest field of all is to be found. In 
 this branch of folk-lore research a good 
 deal has already been done. The cuna- 
 bula of our literature are full of it, and in 
 
302 
 
 THE DOMINION ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY. 
 
 I 
 
 modern times Abbe Petitot, Mr. H. Hale, 
 Dr. V. Boas, the late Rev. Dr. Raiul, Mr. 
 A. j. Chamberlain, Abbe Mauraull, Mr. 
 H. 11. Bancroft, Mrs. VV. W. Brown, the 
 Rev. John .McLean, Father Lacombe, Mr. 
 James Deans, and a number of others 
 have contributed to its elucidation. The 
 British .Association, when it met in 
 Montreal, appointed a committee, consist- 
 injrof Dr. H. B. Tvlor. Mr. W. Bloxam, 
 Sir I). Wilson, Or. 11. M. Dawson, Cien. 
 Sir H. Lefroy, and Mr. R. tl. Haliburton, 
 to investigate the physical characteristics, 
 languages and industrial and social con- 
 ditions of the North-Western tribes of 
 the Dominion, and the reports that have 
 been issued from year to year contain a 
 mass of interesting information touching 
 the folk-lore of the chief tribes of British 
 Columbia. Dr. Petitot laboured for 
 twenty years in gathering, while a mis- 
 sionary in the farthest inhabited north, 
 the folk-lore of the Esquimaux and the 
 Tinne folk. Some of his treatises have 
 been trarslated by Mr. Douglas Brymner, 
 Dominion Archivist. His latest collection 
 of "Traditions Indiennes du Canada Nord- 
 Ouest — Textes Originaux et Traduction 
 IJttcrale"- -was published in 1888, The 
 Rev. E. F. Wilson, who from his head- 
 quarters at Sault Ste. Marie has for many 
 years been doing the work of an investi- 
 gator as well as of a missionary, suc- 
 ceeded a couple of years ago in forming a 
 Canadian Research and Indian .Aid 
 Society, with a periodical, the Canadian 
 Indian, for the publication of its trans- 
 actions. The membership comprised some 
 excelled I names, and Mr. Wilson was in- 
 
 defatigable in his labours ; but the project 
 did not prove a success. 
 
 These are the merest indications* of 
 Canada's unworked or partially worked 
 field for folk-lore investigation. I think 
 that after a survey of it, however brief, 
 it may be admitted that among the various 
 nationalities that make up our Dominion 
 — every province, every county even, 
 which has some traditional features of its 
 own -there is as much scope (in propor- 
 tion to our population) for the inquiries 
 of the folk-lorist as there Is in any other 
 community of either hemisphere. If 
 Holland, Portugal or Roumania, New 
 Zealand, Cape Colony or British Guiana, 
 can find in their mixed old world stocks or 
 in the disparate and strangely contrasted, 
 yet not wholly unmingled strains of the 
 white and coloured races, ample scope for 
 fruitful observation, of value to the his- 
 torian and the philosopher, there is surely 
 no reason why, in the Dominion of Can- 
 ada, with our Esquimaux and Indians, 
 our French and I^nglish, with their kin- 
 ships and their diversities, our Celts of 
 Wales and Man, of Ireland and the High- 
 lands, and our scattered colonies of 
 Teutons, Norsemen, Hungarians and 
 Chinese, all living amongst us the lives 
 that their fathers led, professing their 
 ancestral creeds and speaking their 
 mother tongues, we, too, may not add our 
 mite to the treasury of knowledge and 
 make Canadian folk-lore a felt reality in 
 the world. 
 
 John Rkade. 
 
 • I may s.iy that the paper has l)eeii cut down to about 
 half its "oriKmal length in order to conform to litnita- 
 lious of space. 
 
It the project 
 
 lications* of 
 ally worked 
 on. I think 
 >wever brief, 
 if the various 
 xr Dominion 
 :>iinty even, 
 atures of its 
 ; (in propor- 
 fhe inquiries 
 in any other 
 sphere. If 
 mania, ?N'e\v 
 tish Guiana, 
 rid stocks or 
 Y contrasted, 
 rains of the 
 pie scope for 
 
 I to the his- 
 lere is surely 
 lion of Can- 
 md Indians, 
 th their kin- 
 our Celts of 
 nd the High- 
 colonies of 
 
 farians and 
 us the lives 
 "essing their 
 aking their 
 ' not add our 
 •wledge and 
 'elt reality in 
 
 IN Reade. 
 
 lit down to about 
 
 II form to limita-