as in a state of gradual decay or transition from verse to
prose, and that the prose portions were, to almost as great an extent as
the verse, traditional.

Be this as it may, the tenacity with which the illiterate story-teller
generally adheres to the substance and to the very words of his
narrative is remarkable--and this in spite of the freedom sometimes
taken of dramatic illustration, and the license to introduce occasional
local and personal allusions and "gag." These are easily separable from
the genuine tale. What Dr. Rink says of the Eskimo story-telling holds
good, more or less, all over the world. "The art," he states, "requires
the ancient tales to be related as nearly as possible in the very words
of the original version, with only a few arbitrary reiterations, and
otherwise only varied according to the individual talents of the
narrator, as to the mode of recitation, gesture, &c. The only real
discretionary power allowed by the audience to the narrator is the
insertion of a few peculiar passages from other traditions; but even in
that case no alteration of these original or elementary materials used
in the composition of tales is admissible. Generally, even the smallest
deviation from the original version will be taken notice of and
corrected, if any intelligent person happens to be present. This
circumstance," he adds, "accounts for their existence in an unaltered
shape through ages; for had there been the slightest tendency to
variation on the part of the narrator, or relish for it on that of the
audience, every similarity of these tales, told in such widely-separated
countries, would certainly have been lost in the course of centuries."
Here the audience, wedded to the accustomed formularies, is represented
as controlling any inclination to variation on the reciter's part. How
far such an attitude of mind may have been produced by previous
repetitions in the same words we need not inquire. Certain it is that
accuracy would be likely to generate the love of accuracy, and _that_
again to react so as to compel adherence to the form of words which the
ear had been led to expect. Readers of Grimm will remember the anxiety
betrayed by a peasant woman of Niederzwehr, near Cassel, that her very
words and expressions should be taken down. They who have studied the
records collectors have made of the methods they have adopted, and the
assistance they have received from narrators who have understood and
sympathized