Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/239

Rh it is uniform, since the lais chosen are mostly unconnected with the Arthurian cycle—Guigemar, Le Fraisne, Les dons Amanz, Yonec, Lawstic, Chievrefoil, Eliduc. It forms, however, a welcome supplement and companion volume to Miss Weston's translation of four of the lais, published in the series in 1900, and is a pleasing and handy version of Marie's delightful work. It is of course hopeless to attempt to render in prose the fascinating quaintness and happiness of Marie's verse, but on the other hand the translation of these lais into their original metre is an almost impossible task. The introduction, dealing with the whole question of Marie's work and its relation to sources, though of course not attempting to treat the subject in scientific detail, is ample for the needs of the general reader; so also are the notes, in which the relation of the lais to analogous tales elsewhere preserved is discussed fully and satisfactorily.—W. W. Greg.

The list of versions of, and books on, this old English poem, which have appeared in English, cuts a sorry figure beside the work of German scholars, and any addition to it deserves a welcome. The latest, now before us, will be valuable to any who desire to gain a knowledge of the poem, or who want a handy key to the various theories about it. The text is interspersed with a paraphrase in distinct type, designed to elucidate obscure passages. There is an exhaustive bibliography and useful indexes, genealogies, &c., and a few well-chosen illustrations of Scandinavian weapons, ornaments, &c. The translator in his introduction distinguishes carefully between the facts and theories about the poem. His own conclusion is that the story belongs to Denmark and Southern Sweden, but was brought to England by the Angles, or Jutes, and the poem probably composed by a Mercian, a converted heathen, about the year 660. It would form an admirable text-book, if English schools thought the early literature of their race worth study.—.

This is an excellent and scholarly account of the Asa-Faith