Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/505

 Reviews. 463

meant for general readers, and included no learned appreciation of the matter edited. The only attempt so far to deal with the subject critically has been a work of H. L. Hovnanean, issued in Vienna, 1897, and entitled: Essays on the popular literature of the Ancients. In two sections of this work (vol. ii., pp. 273 foil.) the relation of these fables to the Bidpai literature is examined. It may be remarked that Professor Marr's second and third volumes, containing the Armenian and Arabic texts, were already in print by May, 1895. His investigation of the contents has occupied him until April, 1899. It is lucidly arranged in 583 sections, with ample index at the end.

Perhaps the best service which a reviewer of this work can render to folklorists is to translate the Armenian titles of some of the 380 separate fables and allegories of which the Armenian texts, mostly new, are edited in 344 pages in the second volume. They are taken from fourteen codices of the Edjmiatzin library ; a fifteenth is in the Paris library ; two more are at Berlin, two in Venice, two in Vienna, and to the MS. sources must be added the editions already mentioned of Amsterdam and Edjmiatzin. Here then is the list of titles of Wardan's 166 fables : —

1. The king and the two palaces.

2. The man of the east and the twelve gold nails.

3. The lion and the hunters.

4. The lion who shammed sickness. 4A, 4B, 4c. Three variants of 4.

5. The sick lion and the ass that had no heart or ears. 5 A. A variant of 5.

6. The crane, king of the birds, and the ass.

7. The sea-monster with the sweet-smelling mouth.

8. The hermit and the bull-dog. 8a. a variant of 8.

10. The neighbour and the ox that had its tongue cut out. loA. A variant of 10.

11. The poor man who was roasting meat and the eagle.

12. The widow and her thief-child. I2A, I2B. Variants of 12.

13. The hibernating bear (with two variants).

14. The wise chief ass.

15. The ass-lion (with one variant).

16. The lamb and the trumpeter wolf.