Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/517

 Reviews. 475

6. The three simpletons.

7. The story of the miser.

8. The miser and his treasure.

9. How the sin of adultery began. 10. The rich man and his sister's son.

In a second section follow seventeen animal fables. All these twenty-seven are edited from three MSS. of which one is in the Lazareff Institution in Moscow, the other two in Edjmiatzin. In pp. 97-110 follows a collection of fables composed in imitation of those of Wardan, edited from a Berlin MS. Next in pp. 113-128 a selection of Arabic fables from the Indian Office MS. 1049, Then in pp. 1 31-175 the text of the Armenian Physiologus, edited from six codices, with Pitra's readings added. Pages 177-193 contain the text of a piece entitled, " About the deceitful fox and his wickedness," edited from the Paris MS. 135 of a.d. 1615 and from a Venice MS., which the San Lazaro Journal published first in 1881.

It remains to say that medieval Armenian texts, edited with such scrupulous care as Professor Marr everywhere displays, have a singular value for the history of the language, for the tales are mostly composed in the popular dialects of the day, and these have been very little studied. This interest, however, is rather that of the philologist than of the folklorist. For the latter Professor Marr supplies in his three massive volumes a mine of information, in which future researchers in the same field will quarry much of their material.

Fred. C. Conybeare.

Old English Social Life as told hv the Parish Registers. By T. F. Thiselton Dyer, M.A. London : Elliot Stock. 1898.

It is enough to note the value to folklore students of a book like this, which only concerns them in part and incidentally. Mr. Thiselton Dyer has unearthed from the registers and other docu- ments preserved in our parish churches examples of witchcraft, divination, folk-medicine (touching by the seventh son, recipes