Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/467

 Reviews. 447

which he quotes do we see the Matriarchate family appearing with all its distinctive features. While some of the instances which he gives go a certain way to remove this difficulty, it can hardly be admitted that he has quite succeeded in supplying the missing link. This can only be reached by an investigation de novo from original sources of the incidents of these forms of marriage con- nection.

At any rate, Mr. Potter has broken new ground, and has given us a very interesting and suggestive book, which will form an excellent basis for more detailed treatment of an important cycle of popular tradition.

W. Crooke.

Short Notices.

Sir Cleges. Sir Libeaus Desconiis. Two Old English Metrical Romances rendered into prose by Jessie L. Weston. With designs by Caroline M. Watts. [Arthurian Romances un- represented in Malory, No. V.] David Nutt. 1902.

Of the two stories here modernised by Miss Weston, the first is a short semi-humorous piece, apparently by a cleric, containing the well-known fabliau motive of the man who, having to promise half his reward for some act to another person, begs for so many blows as his guerdon. The idea is, of course, found in a number of variants, and appears inter alia in Sacchetti's Novelle and a fifteenth-century collection of Latin stories ; it is also said to be familiar among the Berbers of Africa. The other story, that of Sir Libeaus Desconus or Le Bel Inconnus, contains a variety of motives which constantly reappear in different combinations in Arthurian literature. First we have the boy brought up by his mother alone in the forest in ignorance of knightly deeds going to Arthur's court ; next the damsel who arrives at the court in search of succour and flouts the young warrior allotted her as champion ; and so forth. On all these points succinct information is given in the notes. Other traits seem to be survivals from earlier forms of the story, and have lost their significance. Thus Miss Weston notes that Sir Griffroun was probably originally a magician, while