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.It was seers who were afforded sights of Lyonesse; and it was theinitiated, not the educated, who could sense the unseen.It would be wrong, however, to understand The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries as ananti-modern argument.Rather, the argument here is that it represents one episode ina wider conflict between two contradictory versions of the modern: the one definedby established religion  which Evans-Wentz, as Winkler (1982: 20) adds,  neverreally forgave& for disavowing reincarnation  and state-sponsored education, andthe other defined by nature-mysticism and the early human sciences  folklore andanthropology  and spiritualism and psychical research. I am well aware of the non-catholic nature of much of the book, Evans-Wentz wrote to Jenner, thanking him forhis  long and careful criticism of the book,  and can expect all sorts of reviews.But,as I think you feel, the study is not intended to be controversial in matters touchingreligion: it is chiefly a presentation of theory from an historical and scientific viewpoint 20.This was a dual appeal to science, in the underlying methodologicalprinciples of both the collection and the analysis of his evidence.For the earlyhuman sciences, it was necessary to appeal to the epistemological bases of thenatural sciences in order to achieve intellectual respect.County folklorists, moreletter to H.Jenner, 20 November, in Jenner Collection (Courtney Library, Royal Institution ofCornwall) box 9: packet 8: bundle 1149often than not,  emphasized the trustworthiness and fidelity of their contentsalthough the idea of accuracy did not at this stage require the literal reproduction ofthe spoken word (Dorson 1999: 321).Similarly, in his introduction to chapter two, The Taking of Evidence , which accounts for over 200 pages of the book, Evans-Wentz (2002: 20) emphasised:  The only liberty taken with some of the evidence hasbeen to put it into better grammatical form, and sometimes to recast an ambiguousstatement when I, as collector, had in my own mind no doubt as to its meaning. Hisstudy might be presumed to have achieved such intellectual respect, being as it wasoriginally published by Oxford University Press.Evans-Wentz field collection revealed a regional geography of the Celtic fairy faithin Cornwall, covering as it did  the region between Falmouth and the Land s End,which is now the most Celtic; and the Tintagel country on the north coast (Evans-Wentz 2002: 170).Cornwall was also, for Evans-Wentz, the most Anglicised of thesix Celtic nations in his study, and its folklore was the least  virile.Nonetheless, thematerial on Cornwall occupies 22 pages of the chapter. It has become, perhapsalways has been in modern times, a widespread opinion, even among some scholars,Evans-Wentz (2002: 19) argued, that the belief in fairies is the property solely of simple, uneducatedcountry-folk, and that people who have had  a touch of education and alittle common sense knocked into their heads , to use the ordinarylanguage,  wouldn t be caught believing in such nonsense. This sameclass of critics used to make similar remarks about people who said therewere ghosts, until the truth of another  stupid superstition wasdiscovered by psychical research.Thus, through interviews with an assortment of figures, including middle-classnewspaper editors, architects, local historians, artists and folklorists, as well aselderly farmers, fishermen, miners and retired rural policemen, he collected enoughevidence to reach and support his conclusion that Fairyland exists as an invisible world within which the visible worldis immersed like an island in an unexplored ocean, and that it is peopled20Evans-Wentz, W.Y.(1911) unpublished letter to H.Jenner, 9 December, in Jenner Collection(Courtney Library, Royal Institution of Cornwall) box 9: packet 8: bundle 1150by more species of living beings than this world, because incomparablymore vast and varied in its possibilities (Evans-Wentz 2002: 18).In response to Evans-Wentz initial request, Jenner wrote his introduction within sixweeks.Evans-Wentz wrote to Jenner again, on 1 August 1910, to acknowledge itsreceipt:  The introduction, he wrote, contains ideas not heretofore known and these coming from a true Celtwhose name is inseparable from that of Cornwall make it a scientificdocument of utmost value to Celtic scholars.Not only is it scientific, butit is excellent reading and in places delicately humorous 21.Evans-Wentz intended his book to be  a pan-Celtic study by a Celt  he being ofWelsh descent on his mother s side of the family22.Not only did he emphasise the trustworthiness and fidelity of its contents, so as to claim scientific status, then, buthe also emphasised the Celticity of its contents so as to claim further authenticity. The essential ideal is to make my study of the  Fairy-Faith thoroughly pan-Celticand representative of every class of Celts from the peasant to the scholar, he toldJenner. Such little introductions will complete the survey and make a completepicture of the state of the Fairy-Faith in the early years of the twentieth century,rather than merely introduce the lore collected 23.Jenner s introduction thus becamepart of Evans-Wentz research material, hence the importance of emphasising itsCelticity.There was, at least initially, little difference between Evans-Wentz conclusions andJenner s own ideas. In reading over the Introduction, Evans-Wentz wrote,  I wasagreeably surprised to learn how much your theory of fairies is like my own.Therereally is no great difference between our views: and what you say particularly of thepixies coincides with the less clear conclusions I have arrived at about them& Theetymological part of the paper, he added,  is very striking 24 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]