Thus far in the summary which we have made of the principal narratives current in the folklore of those countries extending from Ireland to India we have been dealing with fiction. Whether a story-teller has recounted the long and complicated adventures of the dragon-slayer, a joke about a stupid married couple, an anecdote of an embarrassed parson, or a shrewd trick of the fox, or has successfully threaded the mazes of a cumulative story, he is seldom [p. 235] under any illusions that his story refers to actual events. He knows well enough that his characters live in a world of make-believe. [362]

But that is not to say that all tales in the folklore of Europe and Asia are regarded as fiction. Simple man, though unlettered and without benefit of science and history, possesses nevertheless his own science and his own history. These have been taught him by his fathers and his neighbors. He knows how the animals acquired their present habits, why the weather behaves as it does in his country, how constellations were formed and what they mean. For each of these he has an interesting story, one that is vouched for from of old and is not open to doubt. And if his science comes thus in interesting tales, so also does his history. He knows not only famous events like Noah's flood, but also a hundred other stories which the vicissitudes of time have attached to the Biblical legend like barnacles on the ark itself.

Traditional history and traditional science of the kind here suggested seem to be a part of the folklore of peoples all over the world. But it is only in Europe and, to some extent, in western Asia that such tales are considered in a class to themselves. On the one hand stands the vast store of recognized fiction and on the other these tales which are related as undoubted. facts. Most story-tellers are very clear about when they are speaking to command belief and when they are contriving a fiction. [363]