Note 3 — Introduction.

Of course we must expect to find such legends very much altered, and in a state of almost inextricable confusion, and this not only through forgetfulness, and through the lapse of time since their origin, not only by the influence of a total change of religion, but they are also mingled and inter-penetrated with totally new ideas; the old and the new will be found side by side in striking and sometimes grotesque contrast. As in Campbell’s “Tales of the West Highlands,” personages of mythical antiquity go to kirk, and indulge in other decidedly post-Reformation practices, so in these Basque tales the reader must not be startled by the introduction of maize and tobacco, of cannon and gunpowder, of dances at the mairie, and the use of the guillotine, in stories which, perhaps, originally told of the movements of the stars, of the wars of the forces of the atmosphere, of the bright beauty of the rising, or of the glowing glory of the setting sun.3 The body is the same in all ages, but the dress varies with the changing fashions. To borrow an illustration from a slightly older science, this is not a simple case of contorted and overlying strata to be restored to their original order, but rather of strata worn down, reconstructed, and deposited anew, and even modified in their latest stage by the interference of human action. And thus our problem becomes an exceedingly complex and difficult one, and our readers must not be disappointed if our conclusions are not so clear and positive as might be wished. The present is merely a tentative, and not, in any sense, a final essay towards its solution.