ABSTRACT
The sources for history originally confined too few and simple categories, have gradually become more complex in character and will continue to do so. The writing of contemporaneous history has its special difficulties, but also its advantages and rewards. Folklore and ballads are among the most beautiful and alluring of the sources of history. The ballad in particular, which often throws a bright prismatic light upon manners, customs, beliefs, and primitive emotions, is the composition rather of a folk than of an individual; it rose from the heart and lips of a whole people. Legends, in the most technical sense, are a branch of folklore relating to a sacred person, place, or incident. Primitive materials for history, historians have called these various forms of non-literary data; but while they are primitive in the sense of lacking subtlety and detail, in another sense some of them are far indeed from primitive.
