Note 91.1 — Chapter IV · THE INCIDENT OF THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH IN MÄRCHEN.

Romances are, of course, literature, not folklore. In other words, they are the deliberate productions of civilisation, they are works of conscious art. Their authority, therefore, as evidence of tradition is greatly inferior to that with which the report of a folktale is invested. Folktales, when written down, cease to be traditions. They are merely evidence of tradition preserved for us by reporters. Their value depends on the accuracy and knowledge with which they have been reported. The more closely they represent the very words of the tellers of the tales—the bearers of the traditions—the more valuable, the more authentic, they are. Romances, on the other hand, cannot claim to be reports of traditions. They are subject to the laws of art, as developed under the influences of civilisation. Even when starting from real traditions, their aim is not accuracy but amusement. Whatever changes are required by the development of taste or fashion, whatever changes will from any cause add to the pleasure of the reader, their authors are at liberty—nay, they are bound—to make. But when all this is conceded there remains the fact that an immense number of romances start from tradition, and embody its characteristic barbarisms and its fantastic impossibilities. Of this kind is an incident in the Spanish Romance de don Tristan by Alonso de Salaya, written towards the end of the fifteenth century. It is related there that, Tristram being wounded in a transport of jealousy by King Mark, Isolte visited him; and the two lovers shed abundant tears. From these tears a lily sprang. “Every woman who eats of it forthwith feels herself pregnant; Queen Isolte ate of it to her sorrow.”91.1