therefore may be said to possess style.

An old tale which has a literary form unusual in its approach to the
perfect literary form, is the Norse, _The Three Billy-Goats Gruff_,
told by Dasent in _Tales from the Norse_. Indeed after looking
carefully at this tale one is tempted to say that, for perfection of
style, some of the old folk-tales are not to be equaled. Note the
simple precision shown in the very first paragraph:--

Once on a time there were three Billy-Goats, who were to go
up to the hill-side to make themselves fat, and the name of
all three was "Gruff."

Energy or force appeals to the emotions in the words of the tiny
Billy-Goat Gruff to the Troll:--

"Oh, no! pray don't take me. I'm too little, that I am,"
said the Billy-Goat; "wait a bit till the second Billy-Goat
Gruff comes, he's much bigger."

There is emotional harmony displayed in the second paragraph; the
words used fit the ideas:--

On the way up was a bridge over a burn they had to cross;
and under the bridge lived a great ugly Troll, with eyes as
big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker.

The quality of personality is best described, perhaps, by saying that
the tale seems to have impersonality. Any charm of the story-tellers
of the ages has entered into the body of the tale, which has become an