ABSTRACT
On the cusp of a new century that promised to bring profound changes to the world, English folklorist Edwin Sidney Hartland in 1899 riveted the attention of his august Victorian audience with a provocative question: “What is Folklore and What is the Good of It?” (Hartland 1899). Folklore had become a popular subject in the land and consumers snapped up books on tales, speech, and songs with the term in the title. By the time that Hartland issued his tract, the term folklore, introduced into intellectual discourse by William John Thoms in 1846, had taken hold on several continents. Thoms later reminisced that his motivation was a fear that the past was quickly giving way to industrialism. He remembered that “the railroad mania was at its height, and the iron horse was trampling under foot all our ancient landmarks, and putting to flight all the relics of our early popular mythology” (Thoms 1876, 42).
