rough its habits, its
institutions and its creeds. Surely, however, though gradually it
advances, like a rising tide which creeps along the beach, here
undermining a heap of sand, there surrounding, isolating, and at last
submerging a rock, here swallowing up a pool brilliant with living
creatures and many-coloured weed, there mingling with and overwhelming a
rivulet that leaps down to its embrace, until all the shore is covered
with its waters. Meanwhile, he who would understand its course must know
the conformation of the coast,--the windings, the crags (their
composition as well as their shape), the hollows, the sands, the
streams; for without these its currents and its force are alike
inexplicable. The analogy must not be pressed too far; but it will help
us to understand why we find a fragment of a custom in one place, a
portion of a tale jumbled up with portions of dissimilar tales in
another place, a segment of a superstition, and again a worn and broken
relic of a once vigorous institution. They are the rocks and the sands
which the flood of civilization is first isolating, then undermining,
and at last overwhelming, and hiding from our view. They are (to change
the figure) survivals of an earlier state of existence, unintelligible
if regarded singly, made to render up their secret only by comparison
with other survivals, and with examples of a like state of existence
elsewhere. Taken collectively, they enable us to trace the evolution of
civilization from a period before history begins, and through more
recent times by channels whereof history gives no account.

These are the premises whence we set out, and the principles which will
guide us, in the study on which we are about to enter. The name of Fairy
Tales is legion; but they are made up of incidents whose number is
comparatively limited. And though it would be impossible to deal
adequately with more than a small fraction of them in a work like the
present, still a selection may be so treated as to convey a reasonably
just notion of the application of the principles laid down and of the
results to be obtained. In making such a selection several interesting
groups of stories, unconnected as between themselves, might be chosen
for consideration. The disadvantage of this course would be the
fragmentary nature of the discussions, and consequently of the
conclusions arrived at. It is not wholly possible to avoid this
disadvantage in any mode of treatment; but it