From former experience, I find
that each of these principles has met with some dissent from critics who
have written from the high and lofty standpoint of folk-lore, or from
the lowlier vantage of "mere literature." I take this occasion to soften
their ire, or perhaps give them further cause for reviling.
My folk-lore friends look on with sadness while they view me laying
profane hands on the sacred text of my originals. I have actually at
times introduced or deleted whole incidents, have given another turn to
a tale, or finished off one that was incomplete, while I have had no
scruple in prosing a ballad or softening down over-abundant dialect.
This is rank sacrilege in the eyes of the rigid orthodox in matters
folk-lorical. My defence might be that I had a cause at heart as sacred
as our science of folk-lore--the filling of our children's imaginations
with bright trains of images. But even on the lofty heights of folk-lore
science I am not entirely defenceless. Do my friendly critics believe
that even Campbell's materials had not been modified by the various
narrators before they reached the great J.
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