The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-11-12
CONGRESS.
tons Of the International
y at the Recent London
Meeting.
81 Great Interest to Those
ho Take Delight In the
Occult.

\ Tales Are Transmitted-The
nta Listen to m Edison Per-
fected Phonograph.
irrational Folk lore congress has
aided a ssssiuE. of unusual interest
}, at Burlington house. The OPEN
% was delivered before the myth
I~sction Of the congress BY the
Prof. John Rhys. He skstched
recent history Of mythology and
connection with the science Of
the modern school becoming
anthropologioal rather than &C.
classical, and correcting its com.
By the living traditions Of modern
ind peasants and not merely by
references to the Iliad and the
\. DR.. Tylor, in his work on
. Culture" was, perhaps, the first
Id the now method in a systematic
The only criticism he would sug-
hat tho anthropological school Of
y seemed to mako too little OF
. chief difficulties in the Study Of
' arose from the blending Of myth
Dry and the mixing Of n race
her. No n could tell how far
urian legend, for instance. was
how far ii was derived from tho
} population Of the British isles.
bbably was an historical man Ar
there was little possibility Of ever
ating the historical from the
Theological stories in the cycle OF
The moral was that while facts
pmulating so rapidly and theories
lly blossoming, men should abb
n writing books longer than maya
lies, and even those articles should
once a year.
lyth of the Odyssey was the sub
paper by II. Ploix. All the char
| the places. in the poem are fabu-
10 hero went forth, like the heroes
by European tales, to seek a for
wife in the mythical sea which is
ntio forest of nursery tales. He
the ha Ids of q sorcsress, for Clrce
pso are two variants of the same
d the eve years of his imprison-
bote u magical period common in
lk-loie.
GUS survival OF polytheism and
IT was described by Mr.. G. G.. Le-
ong tho peasants in the mountains
Forti and Ravenna in northern
There they still worship spirits
plletti, who bore the names Of old
gods or of the Older Roman minor
titles, Talon. originally Tufuns,
mt Etruscnn Bacchus, the spirit of
yards and wine; ''Enohantingly
l." q Notwithstanding sprite and =
{ the pretty girls; Teramo. the
merchants, thieves, and carrier
who waS the old god Turns. Yaso
the Etrusoan prototype of Mars,
he crops and fertility, later to be-
} god of war, and Diana, the queen
tches. Mr.. Leland has also found
Eical cures in popular use out OF =
that had been collected in the
century by Marcellus of bordeaux,
ysiciaR to tho Emperor Honorlus.
n scarcely less surprising was then
Miss Owen on "Voodoo Magic"
Oh magic she was the only white
bver initiated. The initiation was
b. Bare-headsd and bare-footed
led backward At midnight to a fall
pulled up by the roots q weed with
hshiud her back, made Y packet
aves. ana wore them for nine days
Tor right arm, then scattered the
10 the four winds over the right
!. and then at last began her course
kction. She learnt that ten was an
number, and that four times four
nr was Irresistible in incantations,
r each lesson she had to get drunk
king whisky or swallowing tobacco
Fst day Of the congress closed nth
Fsazione in tho MERGERS hall, whore
lis from village school played folk
Ines, such as "Three-Dukes-a-R Rid
oranges and Lemons" and Oats.
Ind Barley" and afterward q num-
.|entlemen acted the Cruisers Play"
ton of the common "Mummers'
still every Christmas in Stat
To-. Finally folk songs wers sung,
prnpipe danced.
days proceedings opened
address before the folk-tale section
p. Sidney Hartland. The great in
folk songs and folk tales lay. he
|, in the light thew threw on the
a and beliefs Of primitive man and
constitution of the human mind.
10 extreme and opposite theories
to destroy much Of this interest.
hropolocical theory held that it was
bic to determine the birthplace of
y, for no story had any one BIRTH
ut wherever the social conditions
environment were similar. similar
lad been evolved. The dissemina-
cory, on the contrary. held that no
les mad sver been invented precisely
At that stories were handed down
I'm father to son, from traveller to
, till they had made tho circuit Of
d. Were either theory accepted in
RENE form, no certain information
be gained from folk lore, but the
may be both true in a measure.
iversal characteristics Of human
in number, especially in a prim-
to of culture, and would naturally
but few plots with but slight modi-
At the same time one may admit
dissemination of stories 80 or1gi-
Miss Cox has examined and tabn-
,rs than 100 variants OF Cinderella.
glass slipper appears in only four
's-one French, one Irish and two
At first sight one would sup
I these four variants were derived
ne common original, and yet in
spect exooEt the matter of the glass
hey differ more from one another
III the variants in which tho glass
8 not mentioned. Mr.. w. W. New
a theory that folk tales
nsmittsd from the more cultivated
IS cultivated people in cases where
. common to both, but Mr.. An
ng thought otherwise. Most. of
on reflected the customs of print
lizntion. The diffusion of myths.
was very mysterious. India was
! to have been the GENITAL homo Of
thu III, but long before that they
IA Egypt, and the same tales are
among the Esauimaux and the
J, whore they could hardly have
ken by travellers. MIR. Joseph
n a paper on 1.-The Problem Of
A." objected to Mr.. Lang's belief in
unl' origination of tales. Tho pre-
WI q nnfptnl~ thn rHEn. III |