ABSTRACT
Folk-lore may adduce useful materials for the history of the concept of the deity or, to use a better word, of the Divine, by assembling data bearing on the lower demonology. As a matter of fact, the materials of Folk-lore have repeatedly been regarded as pertaining in a more or less direct way to the domain of religious beliefs, and a number of folklorists have spoken of them as the ‘elder faith’ of a given social group. The creeds and dogmas pertain to Folk-lore only in so far as they have incorporated myths, which is not at all seldom; but the rest belongs to the pursuits of philosophy and theology. Folklorists even have examples of religions deliberately founded with the intent to make a tabula rasa of all myths, classed as polytheism and idolatry, and being compelled, against their will, to readmit afterwards a whole host of myths.
