The Clyde Mystery

The Clyde Mystery
a Study in Forgeries and Folklore

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3
(1 Review)
The Clyde Mystery by Andrew Lang

Published:

1905

Pages:

99

Downloads:

1,107

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The Clyde Mystery
a Study in Forgeries and Folklore

By

3
(1 Review)
The author would scarcely have penned this little specimen of what Scott called "antiquarian old womanries," but for the interest which he takes in the universally diffused archaic patterns on rocks and stones, which offer a singular proof of the identity of the working of the human mind. Anthropology and folklore are the natural companions and aids of prehistoric and proto-historic archaeology, and suggest remarks which may not be valueless, whatever view we may take of the disputed objects from the Clyde sites.

Book Excerpt

"suspend my judgement" for the present. {10}

This appears to me the most scientific attitude. Time is the great revealer. But Dr. Munro, as we saw, prefers not to suspend his judgment, and says plainly and pluckily that the disputed objects in the Clyde controversy are "spurious"; are what the world calls "fakes," though from a delicate sense of the proprieties of language, he will not call them "forgeries." They are reckoned by him among "false antiquities," while, for my part, I know not of what age they are, but incline I believe that many of them are not of the nineteenth century. This is the extent of our difference. On the other hand I heartily concur with Dr. Munro in regretting that his advice,--to subject the disputed objects at the earliest possible stage of the proceedings, to a jury of experts,--was not accepted. {11a}

One observation must be made on Dr. Munro's logical method, as announced by himself. "My role, on the present occasion, is to advocate the correctness of my own views

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