Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/348

 3 1 8 Reviews.

blood as it dropped. The spectators threw clods and stones at it, but it still kept there. On the third day the corpse disappeared, and the dog also vanished" (p. 283).

It is a pity that Mr. Fanshawe did not add to his budget more stories like these. As it is, the book is of permanent value as a record of facts, and will be a valuable quarry to some writer in the future, who, with a keener eye for romance, will breathe life into the ruins of a site associated with a most tragical past.

W. Crooke.

Hessische Blatter fur Volkskunde, herausgegeben im Auftrage der Hessischen Vereinigung fiir Volkskunde, von Adolf Strack. Band I. Leipzig, B. G. Teubner, 1902, S'', pp. 286. Price 7m. 50.

This is the first volume of a new series of Blatter fiir Hessische Volkskunde. A preface explains that the Society has grown con- siderably, that it hopes to be in a position to publish yearly a volume of this size, and will in future open its columns to papers on subjects not specifically Hessian. In the interests of folklore this decision is to be applauded ; the amount of new material to be collected from a single province is after all limited ; and even were it not so, it would be desirable for the collector's attention to be called to the folklore of other districts.

The longest paper is Usener's address to the Philological and Pedagogic Congress of 1893, reprinted with full references. It deals with comparative "Sitten- und Rechtsgeschichte," and is mainly occupied with a discussion of religious and other societies in classical times and their German analogues. The author lays down the principle that savage parallels may be disregarded because the circumstances are different— a proposition not easy to reconcile with his dictum that the classical and Germanic customs with which he deals are survivals or revivals of really primitive types. The paper is, however, not only valuable as a collection of facts. It is of a most illuminating character, and shows once more what a large field the classical folklorist has before him. In an appendix is given the Luxemburg " Amecht," an annual dramatic performance by the guild of young men.

The Folk-Lore Society may hail it as a joyful sign of the times