of omen, coincidence, and correspondence helped by incessant and
imperfect observation and logic, bring about a system of religious
observance, of magic and ritual, and all the masses of folly and
cruelty, hope and faith, and even charity, that group about their
inventions, and seem to be the necessary steps in the onward path of
progressive races.

When to these we add the true and exaggerated memories of actual heroes,
the material before the student is pretty completely comprised. Though
he must be prepared to meet the difficulties caused in the contact of
races, of civilisations, by the conversion of persons holding one set of
mythical ideas to belief in another set of different, more attractive,
and often more advanced stage.

The task of arriving at the scientific, speculative ethic, and the
actual practice of our remote ancestry (for to that end is the student
of mythology and folk-lore aiming) is not therefore easy. Nor is the
record perfect, though it is not so poor in most cases as was once
believed. The Brothers Grimm, patriarchs alike as mythologists and
folk-lorists, the Castor and Pollox of our studies, have proved this as
regards the Teutonic nations, just as they showed us, by many a striking
example, that in great part folk-lore was the mythology of to-day, and
mythology the folk-lore of yesterday.

In many cases we are helped by quite modern material to make out some
puzzle that an old tale presents, and there is little doubt but that the
present activity in the field of folklore will not only result in fresh
matter but in fresh methods freshly applied.

The Scandinavian material, at all events, is particularly rich: there is