Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/370

 33^ Reviews.

(from Perun, the Slavonic Thunder-god) Lempo (regarded by Mr. Abercromby as a forest sprite, but the word seems to be of Germanic origin = Ump ; in the Magic Songs the Devil is ad- dressed as " Lempo, Piru, the hmping fellow ").

Other names for the Devil are Aijo, the old one, who, with his sons and daughters, is frequently mentioned in the Magic Songs ; Juutus (Judas), Paha (the evil one), Pakana (the pagan), Keito, &c.

In his account of the underworld, Tuonela, Mr. Abercromby rejects without mentioning it Comparetti's perhaps rather fanciful derivation of the word from tuonne, and says it is the same as the Lapp duodna (" miserable"). It is a pity that the author should have been so cramped by the comprehensiveness of his scheme, that he could not afford space to enter more into detail on this and other points which are new to many of his readers. A few mythological names which one might have expected seem to have been omitted from this chapter. In the account of elves and brownies there is no mention of Tonttu, the house-sprite {huoneeti Jialtia), mentioned by Agricola, and, though there is a full account of Pohjola, the land of gloom and sorrow, nothing is said about the complementary idea of Paivdla, Saari, the land of sunshine and plenty. The reason may be that neither Tonttu nor Paivola occurs in the Magic Songs, but among the mythological names which do occur there, and are also omitted in this chapter, are the following : Antero Vipunen, Untamo, Lemminkainen, Aijo, and Keito. The opinion of Mr. Abercromby about the first three of these personages would have been welcome, and the last two names occur so often in the Magic Songs that they should surely have been included in this chapter. Keito's spears = " sorcerers' elf-shots," occur in several of the charms, and the name Keito is generally paralleled with Piru or Hiisi. In Renvall's Lexicon he is described as a patron of metals. I also note in the section on instruments (p. 353) that there is no account of the Para, the apparatus for magically conveying the milk of a neighbour's cow to one's own dairy. This is explained, however, in the Index (vol. ii. p. 396).

The second volume of Mr. Abercomby's work is devoted to the Magic Songs of the Western Finns. These are translated from the Loiisurunoja of Dr. Lonnrot. Readers of Folk-Lore will recog- nise all the " Origins " (except one) as having appeared in these