Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/284

 CORRESPONDENCE.

Kitty-Witches. (Vol. ix., p. 366.) The Yarmouth disguising has its double parallel in the " Hart- jesdag " at Amsterdam, when many people of the lower classes haunt the way to Haarlem and the taverns lining it, the men disguised in female attire, the women in male, and both in drink, At the same time the Haarlemmers walk out into the downs, arranging picnics, &c. This " Hartjesdag " is the Monday fol- lowing the 15th of August, i.e. in the Roman Calendar the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which was most probably substi- tuted for some female deity's festival. Our antiquaries are apt to connect it with Hertha.

Dr. W. ZUIDEMA.

Amsterdam.

Mr. St. Clair's "Creation Records." (Vol. X. p. 109.)

Your journal represents the Folk-Lore Society, and is supposed to encourage inquiry into myth and tradition. I think your reviewer has forgotten this, or he would not treat with such scant courtesy a new investigator. My book is at least the result of industrious reading and much pondering, and my effort to solve the problem of Egyptian mythology ought to be welcomed. Your reviewer seeks rather to laugh me out of court, and apparently for no better reason than that I am an outsider who essays to do what no Egyptologist has yet done. In the same way the elder brothers of David — military men of prowess — thought he had better go home and mind his sheep. But I cannot discover in the criticisms any justification for the advice implied and the air of disdain assumed.

I. It is stated that my book is brimful of learning, but that I quote authorities good, bad, and indifferent, as though they were of equal weight. Well, I do at least give my references. If they