Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/374

 334 Reviews.

St. Laurence, however, fills the part occupied by "the leader of the opposition " in England. The saint, it seems, met Boreas covered with rags, for, defeated and dispossessed of his altars, the wind was returning to the north. The holy man put on no airs of superiority, but entered into conversation with the vanquished power, and the two went on their way together amicably enough until they reached Puy-Saint- Laurent, when the saint said : " Wait here for me. I am going to pray in this oratory." Since then Boreas has been waiting outside for his reappearance, and, having long been tired, he betrays his impatience by his rugissejnents. " Cette legende est extremement repandue," says M. Se'billot, and he gives authority for its existence at Chartres, Langres, Paris (the church of St. Sulpice), Autun, Coutances, Strasburg, Florence, Rome, and Copenhagen.

The riddles given towards the end of the volume are but few in number, although in a mountainous country like Auvergne, "ou les soirees d'hiver sont longues, on doive dire bon nombre de devinettes." As in other parts of Europe, probably, the people who have the best opportunity of collecting folklore have little comprehension of its value, and fail to record practices which seem too puerile to be worthy of attention.

Mabel Peacock.

Tom Tit Tot : an Essay on Savage Philosophy in Folk- tale. By Edward Clodd. London : Duckworth and Co., 1868.

It would not be easy for Mr. Clodd to write a book that would not bear witness to his wide knowledge, his grasp of general prin- ciples, and his keen perception of their logical issues. The book before us is marked by all of these ; and its genial style, so charac- teristic of him, will commend it to that popular perusal for which it is intended. He is a born vzilgarisateur, to use an expressive French word for which we have no exact equivalent. Within a small compass he has expounded the underlying philosophy of the story we remember so well from his first introduction of it to