Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/119

Rh specialised form of the universally human tendency to tell a tale”. And he infers that we are thereby prevented “from applying results obtained from consideration of its history to the more general question of origin”. This is probably correct; but attention should be directed to the negro stories, of which Uncle Remus has given us the best-known series, and the analogues which have been reported from the southern continent of America. The problems connected with the origin and history of the apologue cannot be deemed to be wholly solved until these tales have been dealt with in a fashion as thorough and scholarly as that of Mr. Jacobs.

Turning from fables to the wider domain of sagas, we are met by two works deserving of the most careful study. The relations between themselves of the märchen and the saga, the relation of tradition to historical fact, and the influence of a different series of beliefs, historical and religious, imposed by a higher and conquering upon a lower and vanquished culture, each and all demand the student’s attention. In John White’s Ancient History of the Maoris and Viktor Rydberg’s Researches into Teutonic Mythology, treasures of special value from two opposite ends of the world are poured at his feet.

Mr. White’s first volume was published so long ago as 1887. The object of his book is to let the New Zealander speak for himself and tell his native stories. These stories are gathered from various sources, many of which have been already published or printed in the annals of local societies; while others have been taken down by Mr. White himself from the dictation of Maoris skilled in their tribal traditions: and he is careful to give the Maori text as well as the English translation. The sagas of the first volume are mythological; the remainder, published in 1889, claim to be historical. The interest of the former will be at once admitted. I venture to think that the interest of the latter is at least as great. For, dry and wearisome as are the details of many of the “historical”