xxii. i. (2); promiscuous intercourse, Caesar, _ibid._, v. 14,
Xiphilinus in _Mon. Brit. Hist._, p. lvii.

[163] _History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings_, i. 14.

[164] Innes' _Critical Essay_, 45, 51, 56, 240.

[165] O'Curry's _Manners and Customs of Ancient Irish_, i. p. vi. Dr.
Whitley Stokes has criticised O'Curry's translations as bad, "not from
ignorance, but to a desire to conceal a fact militating against
theories of early Irish civilisation."--_Revue Celtique_, iii. 90-101.

[166] Turner, _Hist. of Anglo-Saxons_, i. 64-74; Palgrave, _Eng. Com._,
i. 467-8.

[167] Giles' _History of Anc. Britons_, i. 231, referring to parallel
customs among the Chinese.

[168] Elton, _Origins of English History_, 82.

[169] Rhys, _Celtic Britain_, 55.

[170] _Celtic Heathendom_, 320, note.

[171] I have dealt with this in my _Ethnology in Folklore_, 36-40.

[172] Skene, _Celtic Scotland_, i. 59, 84.

[173] Pearson, _Hist. of England during the Early and Middle Ages_, i.
15, 21, 35.

[174] Ramsay, _Foundations of England_, i. 9, 11, 30.

[175] Lang, _Hist. of Scotland_, i. 3-5.

[176] Joyce, _Social Hist. of Ireland_, i. 19.

[177] In addition to Mr. Lang and Dr. Joyce, who are folklorists as
well as historians, and who as we have seen do deal with these records
scientifically, the folklorist goes out of his way to reject these
records. Thus Mr. Squire says that "the imputation" which Caesar makes
as to polyandrous customs "cannot be said to have been proved,"
_Mythology of the British Islands_, 30.

[178] _Village Communities_, 17.

[179] _Principles of Sociology_, i. 714.

[180] _Arch. Cambrensis_, 6th ser. v. 3.

[181] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, xx. 259.

CHAPTER II

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The materials of folklore consist of traditional tales (so called) and
traditional customs and superstitions (so called), the feature of both
groups being that at the time of first being recorded and reduced to
writing they existed only by the force of tradition. There is no fixed
time for the record. It is sometimes quite early, as, for instance,
the examples which come to us from historians; it is generally quite
late, namely, the great mass of examples which, during the past
century or so, have been collected directly from the lips or
observances of the people, sometimes by the curious traveller or
antiquary, lately by the professed folklorist.

The consideration of the relationship of history a