Myths and Symbols in Religion and Folklore

WHAT interest now have folklorists in the remote past before the coming of Christianity in north-western Europe, a time when written records were rare and by no means reliable? We now know that folk customs and traditions of our own times, impressive and barbarous though they seem, cannot confidently be assumed to go back into 'the mists of antiquity', as popular guide-books are apt to phrase it. They probably emerged as recently as the nineteenth century or even later, and may have deliberately been given their present shape by some local antiquary, hoping to bring new dignity and popularity to some rowdy annual get-together. Consequently folklorists now tend to concentrate on the detailed history of recent customs, or on story-telling, jokes and popular practices of the present time which can be recorded on a vast scale by the computer. The tendency to avoid the study of past customs has been strengthened by the attitude of archaeologists. Faced with material from the historic past, they have been most reluctant for the last half-century or so, as Ralph Merrifield put it in The Archaeology of Religion and Magic, 'to recognise evidence for behaviour that has no obvious material purpose', if this was not found in a manifestly religious or mortuary context.' While accustomed to draw elaborate conclusions as to what those in earlier times ate or wore, or used as tools or weapons, in building, or in industrial or military organisations, they felt unable to comment on, or sometimes even to record, details which might indicate ideas about the sacred, the spirit world, attempts to avert bad luck, or popular rituals in everyday use. This negative attitude towards the interpretation of spontaneous religious practices or beliefs was of course in its turn a reaction against the tendency to assume that popular customs and traditional tales and odd bits of archaeological evidence difficult to understand must reveal glimpses of a wellorganised pagan past. Encouraged by Robert Graves and his like, many had envisaged a religion of set festivals and sacrifices with such concepts as the dying god, the naked goddess, the dancing corn spirit, all universally recognised by the folk. Traces of such an attitude remain with us yet, as in the recent case of a new Vicar of Bury,2 unnecessarily distressed and agitated by the fear that in allowing a Rose Queen for MayDay to be selected from little girls attending his Sunday School, he would be encouraging a heathen activity, 'firmly rooted' he is reported to have said, 'in pagan fertility rites ... like dancing round a maypole.' Those better versed in the study of folklore realise that such a dream world of orthodox heathen practices dominating early societies and reflected in fragments of later folklore could not conceivably have existed. It has become evident from the work of anthropologists among isolated and what might seem 'primitive' peoples that their beliefs are far from being fixed and simple; complications have inevitably crept in, either through outside influences or from the rich and complex reactions of the human mind and the creative powers of imagination, inspired by natural surroundings and life lived close to the natural world. We have to remember that those following a slower and simpler way of life were not less intelligent than we are; moreover they probably had far more opportunity and encouragement to use their natural gifts for the creation of symbols and the development of imagination and intuition

Art · Folklore · Literature · Mythology · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Philosophy · Religious studies

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