Folklore as an Historical ScienceGomme, George Laurence
History
Folklore as an Historical Science
Gomme, George Laurence
Folklore
Now this myth has, so far as its central fact is concerned, its
counterpart in Celtic folklore. In the Welsh Mabinogi of Math, son of
Mathonwy, it is related how Arianrod laid a destiny upon her son, whom
she would not recognise, that he should never have a wife of the race
that now inhabits the earth, and how Gwydion declared that he should
have a wife notwithstanding. "They went thereupon unto Math, the son
of Mathonwy, and complained unto him most bitterly of Arianrod. Well,
said Math, we will seek, I and thou, by charms and magic, to form a
wife for him out of flowers. So they took the blossoms of the oak, and
the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and
produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man
ever saw." No one can doubt that this interesting fragment of Welsh
tradition takes us back to a creation legend of the same order as the
Indian legend, and that the two widely separated parallels belong to
the period when men were carving out for themselves theories as to the
origin of women in relation to men.
It is impossible to deny a place among these myths of creation to the
Hebrew tradition of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The first
chapter of Genesis is the answer which the early Hebrews gave to the
scientific question as to the origin of man. How much it cost them to
arrive at this conclusion one cannot guess, one only knows that it has
become a glory to the ages of Hebrew history, as well as to the
civilisation of Christianity. Unfortunately it has become much more.
The science of the primitive Hebrew has been adopted as the God-given
revelation to all mankind. It is the function of folklore to correct
this error, to restore the Hebrew tradition to its proper place among
the myths of the world which have answered the cry of early man for
the knowledge of his origin. There is no degradation here. Science is
no longer in doubt as to the origin of man within the evolutionary
process of the natural world, and it rightly rejects the first chapter
of Genesis as of value to modern research. But science should accept
it as a chapter in the history of anthropology, a chapter which has
only proved not to be true, because of the limited range of early man
in the facts about man, but a chapter, nevertheless, which has the
inherent value of a faithful record of man's search after truth. This
is a great position. This is the revelation which is made to us from
the first chapter of Genesis, and when the theologian is bold and able
enough to step outside the formularies of his ancient faith, and reach
the magnificent world of thought which lies in front of him by the
revelations of scientific discovery, he will consider the
anthropological interpretation of the Hebrew Bible as one of the
necessary elements of his equipment. There is on present lines a
whole world of thought between science and religion, although they
both have the same object. They both seek the great unknown. Science,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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