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08532_Field_TCGG T297.txt
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1996-04-10
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progress of opinion by word of mouth at an immeasurable
distance behind. Two or three generations of literature
may do more to change thought than two or three
thousand years of traditional life. . . . and so it has come
about that in Europe at the present day the superstitious
beliefs and practices that have been handed down by
word of mouth are generally of a far more archaic type
than the religion depicted in the most ancient literature of
the Aryan race. . . .”
Just how this comes about is the theme of Iona and Peter
Opie in their Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (pp. 1­2):
While a nursery rhyme passes from a mother or other
adult to the small child on her knee, the school rhyme
circulates simply from child to child, usually outside the