The Portland daily press., 1897-05-15
FOLKLORE.
Strange Traditions and Sometimes a
Strange Lack of Them.


great deal of interest in the folklore of
the island where he dwelt. After years
of study he made up his mind for good
and all that there was not particle OF
fact in the legends protesting to be his
toric which he had laboriously gathered.
In distrust at his own credulity, unwill-
ing to let people know what a fool he had
been, he tossed his whole collection into
the fire. Some days afterward there
was terrific hurricane. The islanders
had told him that once upon time long
ago certain famous chieftain used to SIT
on a stone bench beneath tree when
grew close to the Mission House. Ihat
bench had disappeared no one knew wnen
or how, but in the days of heathendom
they used to place offerings to the spirit
of the old chief near the spot where 1t had
stood When the missionary sailed out
on the morning after the storm, the nrst
object he saw was this tree overthrown-
and in the midst of its upturned roots
hung stone benchi The reverend gen.
tleman-Whitting was his name, If we
esmember right-stood in maze. The
legend was true thenl Examination
proved beyond doubt that the bench had
rested against the bole of the tree in some
distant age, for there was no trace of an
incision-the wood had grown smoothly
round and over it. So far as he could
roughly compute, four centuries must
have passed since it stood outside the
trunk. For that time the islanders had
preserved the memory of a circumstance
- trifing-for to question that this was
the bench they assigned to their mythic
hero would have been silly. And then
the good man mourned his haste. He had
destroyed the patient labor of years be-
cause he would not credit the accounts of
grave events given in all seriousness by
members of his flock; and it proved that
they were trustworthy even on such a
detail as the personal habits of a man
who died four hundred years ago.!
The story is one to be borne in mind by
all students of folklore and of that early
age in human annals which is based
u,on tradition. But it does not follow
that Mr. Whiting had good cause to
lament his burned manuscripts, if he
valued them only for the records of
events thay might contain. That there
are particles of fact in the most grotesque
of these legends which profess to be his
toric, we find more and more reason to
believe as our knowledge widens; but it
is rarely posi- BILE to sift them from the
mass of poetic nonsense. Savages every
where keep the memory of startling Incl
dents which occurred, as we learn by in
ternal evidence, an indefinite number of
ages ago. Biologists recognize that the
Black Sea was once lake. with no out
let towards the Mediterranean. They in
cline to think, or believe, that it escaped
through the Bosphorus and the Dardan-
Giles shortly after the glacial period. But
Diodorus Siculus mentions a tradition of
the Samothracians exactly agreeing with
this account, which learned men of the
day have framed upon the teaching of
science. Did the Samothracians exist in
the glacial period? They say that when
the Black Sea broke it's barriers at last
all their country was drowned-that was
the Samothracian flood. And it is evil
dent enough that such must have been
the result of the cataclysm. There is
passage in Pindar also which some COM
mentators interpret as an allusion to the
same prodigious event.
Traditions of the mammoth are so gen.
eral and so vigorous in the extreme north
of America that savants of reputation are
not unwilling to admit the possibility
that it survived two hundred years ago,
and others who have no scientific reputa-
ton to hazard go very much further.
Within the last twelve months it was an
nounced that one of the New York mil
Ionaires-his name was given-had fitted
ont party to bag a living mammoth in
Alaska. Very small details are preserved
by the popular memory sometimes. When
the wizard Earl of FOULS was carried
off, to be boiled alive, as the only means
of killing him, tradition reported that he
threw away the key of his treasure cham
Der. 1t could never be found. But less
than sixty years ago schoolboys playing
in the haunted ruins unearthed great
key which might very well have been
tossed through the air hole of dungeon
opening-the point is ignifcant-beside
the road along which the wicked Earl
was hurried. Many cases might be cited
where even antique stories of buried
treasure have been proved true. A nota-
BILE one is told by the worthy DIR. Plot, in
his history of Herefordshire Bransel
Castle had a specially fine tale of this
sort, alleging that a kings crown was
sunk in the moat In 1850 cottager,
named Taller, planting a hedge along the
moat to protect his children, found
crown set with diamonds He sold it to
jeweller at Gloucester for 81 pounds;
the jeweller transferred it to Lombard
Street goldsmith at great profit, and he
sold the diamonds alone for 500 pounds.
Disappointed inquirers are apt to ex-
claim that the English peasantry have no
traditions. The patriotic Scotsman
makes much of this point, if sufficiently
cultured to notice it. He contrasts the
vacant mind of an English laborer, who,
nv bynothesis heard nothing from his