Welsh Journals

WELSH FOLKLORE. 4$ he had lived twenty years he was obliged to confess that he knew very little indeed about them. Now this good missionary's experience is, I believe, the experience of every one who betakes himself to the study of a subject so complex as Folklore. However much he learns about it, the longer he studies it the more conscious he becomes of the great amount there is yet to know, and of the new problems that come surging up with every addition to his knowledge. Let us consider for a moment what the study of Welsh folklore means. Folklore is the science of tradition ; and by the folklore of any people we mean the general body of its tradition : sits stories, its songs, its sayings, its ceremonies, institutions, customs and superstitions, every practice, every belief, every amusement handed down from one generation to another by word of mouth or by example, but not sanctioned by any written law or civilized religion, nor transmitted as history in any credible record. Matters as trivial as nursery rhymes, riddles, or children's games are no less traditional than the mystical incantations of witchcraft, the famous legend and procession of Lady Godiva at Coventry, the stories of classical gods and heroes, the awful rites of Osiris and the Eleusinian mysteries. The folklore of Wales, there¬ fore, is the general body of the traditions of Wales. How rich those traditions are we become conscious when we think of the stories of the Mabinogion, of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the tales and practices recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis, the fairy tales collected in recent years by Professor Rhys, the curious old funeral custom of the Sin- eater, the legends and the practices connected with wells and pools throughout the country. And these are only some of the traditions now or formerly current in Wales : traditions which for scientific interest, as well as picturesqueness, are not outdone by those of any European nation. Their picturesqueness is patent to everybody, and I need not spend any words over it. Their scientific interest lies not quite so much on the surface, and will perhaps repay a little consideration. Let us take, first, that beautiful old story of the Lady of the Van Pool. The legend of the lonely pool which lies at the foot of the steep grassy cliffs of the Van mountains in Carmarthenshire may still be heard on the lips of the peasantry ; and more than one version has found its way