Preface : PREFACE THE sentence from Montaigne, which faces the title-page of this little book, indicates its scope and purpose. It is based upon studies in the philosophy of folk-tales, in the course of which a large number of examples of curious beliefs and customs bearing on the main incident in cert...
Words Of Power : WORDS OF POWER THERE is no essential difference between Names of Power and Words of Power, and the justification of any division lies wholly in its convenience. For although the implication may be that the one is associated with persons, and the other with things, we have sufficing evidence...
Taboo : TABOO TABOO is the dread tyrant of savage life. Among civilised peoples, under the guise of customs whose force is stronger than law, it rules in larger degree than most persons care to admit. But among barbaric communities it puts a ring. fence round the simplest acts, regulates all intercourse...
The Name And The Soul : THE NAME AND THE SOUL AT the close of this survey of evidence that, in barbaric psychology, the name is believed to be an integral part of a man, the question which suggests itself is, "What part"? The importance attached by the ancient Egyptians to the name in connection with its owner's...
On The Diffusion Of Stories : ON THE DIFFUSION OF STORIES HERE we may interpose a brief example from the Welsh group, as bearing on the origin of the alliterative name 'Tom Tit Tot.' A farmer's wife at Llanlestin often lent her grade!l and padell (the flat iron on which the dough is put for baking, and the pan which is put...
Introduction : INTRODUCTION IN commenting on the prominent example of the conversion of the old epics into allegories which is supplied by Tennyson's "Idylls of the King", whereby the legends 'lose their dream reality without gaining the reality of ordinary life,' Mr. Leslie Stephen remarks that 'as so...
Untitled : Title Page Preface Introduction The Story of Tom Tit Tot Variations of Tom Tit Tot On the Diffusion of Stories Incidental features of Stories Barbaric Ideas about Names Magic through Tangible Things Magic through Intangible Things Taboo Words of Power The Name and the Soul
Barbaric Ideas About Names : BARBARIC IDEAS ABOUT NAMES BEFORE the discovery of iron; before the invention of the art of spinning; before the formulation of the theory of spirits, against whose wiles mortals might successfully plot,--men had found the necessity of inventing signs or symbols wherewith to distinguish one...
Incidental Features Of Stories : INCIDENTAL FEATURES OF THE STORIES ALTHOUGH the selection of only a few of the numerous variants of 'Tom Tit Tot' relieves us from comment on sundry differences in detail between the whole of them, there are points of interest which call for notice before we advance to the central ide...
Title Page : TOM TIT TOT AN ESSAY ON SAVAGE PHILOSOPHY IN FOLK-TALE BY EDWARD CLODD [b. 1840 D. 1930] London, Duckworth And Co., [1898] Scanned And Redacted By Phillip Brown. Additional Proofing And Formatting By John B. Hare. This Text Is In The Public Domain. This File May Be Used For An Non-commercial...
Variations Of Tom Tit Tot : II VARIANTS OF TOM TIT TOT THERE would be only profitless monotony in printing the full texts, or even in giving abstracts, of the numerous variants of this story which have been collected. A list of these, with such comment as may perchance be useful to a special class of readers, is supplied...
Magic Through Intangible Things : MAGIC THROUGH INTANGIBLE THINGS THE examples of belief in a man's tangible belongings as vehicles of black magic will have paved the way for examples of like belief about intangible things, as shadows, reflections, and names. The savage knows nothing of the action of the laws of interference...
The Story Of Tom Tit Tot : TOM TIT TOT THE writer's interest in that group was awakened some years ago when looking over a bundle of old numbers of the Ipswich Journal, in which some odds and ends of local 'notes and queries' were collected. Among these was the story of 'Tom Tit Tot,' which, with another story, 'Cap o' R...
Magic Through Tangible Things : MAGIC THROUGH TANGIBLE THINGS THE dread of being harmed through so intangible a thing as his name, which haunts the savage, is the extreme and more subtle form of the same dread which, for a like reason, makes him adopt precautions against cuttings of his hair, parings of his nails, his saliv...