These song-forms are still entirely the product of external motives and never arise under the independent and immediate influence of subjective moods. Far superior to them is another field of literary composition, the _narrative_. The totemic age, particularly, has produced a great variety of forms of narrative. Predominant among these is the _märchen-myth_, a narrative which resembles the fairy-tale and which, as a rule, continues during this period to be of the nature of a credited myth. It is a prose narrative circulated by word of mouth, in which manner it sometimes traverses wide regions. With occasional changes or in connection with different mythical ideas it may survive many generations. So far as these general characteristics are concerned, the märchen, indeed, is the most permanent of all forms of literary composition. It extends from the most primitive levels of culture down to the present. In the form of the märchen-myth, however, it is especially characteristic of the totemic age. We now possess numerous collections of such tales from the most diverse regions of totemic as well as of later civilizations. An Englishwoman, Mrs. Parker, has brought together a number of Australian tales, and these have been augmented in more recent times, particularly through the labours of the German missionary Strehlow. Strehlow has a great advantage over most of the other Australian investigators in being familiar with the languages of the tribes among whom he lives. Valuable material regarding America and Africa has been gathered particularly by American and English travellers; data, furthermore, are not lacking concerning the natural and cultural peoples of other parts of the earth. Moreover, comparative research has for some time past studied the märchen with the primary purpose of determining to what localities the materials of the märchen and the fable have spread, and thus, in turn, of learning the early cultural relations of peoples. This investigation of the märchen, however, has, for the most part, suffered from a false preconception. The criterion by which we judge present-day tales of this sort was applied to märchen-fiction in general. The märchen-myths of primitive peoples, therefore, were regarded either as creations of individuals and as never having been credited, or, at best, as retrogressive forms of higher types of myth--particularly of nature myths--adapted to the needs of childlike comprehension. A closer investigation of the märchen-myths of relatively primitive peoples has rendered this theory absolutely untenable. True, retrogressive forms occasionally occur in this as well as in most other sorts of myth and of literary composition. Nevertheless, there is no longer any room for doubt that, on the one hand, the earliest products of narrative composition were all of the nature of the märchen, and that, on the other hand, most primitive märchen-fictions were _credited myths_.