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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

/ ^ 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

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.

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-