Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/490

 448 Reviews.

The book is most interesting, and well worth the consideration of students. It is to be hoped that it may receive so warm a welcome that the University Press may be emboldened to make the study of modern Greek one of its special features. The material is vast and easy to gather, whilst no one can tell what light it may not yet throw on antiquity.

W. H. D. R.

Vesenneyah Obreedovayah Paysnvah na Zapaday I Slavayn. (Vernal Ceremonial Songs in the West and among the Slavonians.) By E. V. Anitchkoff. Parti. (Ceremonial Songs.) Pp. xxix., 392. 8vo. St. Petersburg. 1903.

Although this important work is written entirely in Russian (except, of course, quotations) it will not be entirely useless to students of folklore who are unacquainted with the language, if only on account of the extensive bibliography, which is in two parts, of which the Russian portion (separate from the rest) occupies eight columns and that of other literature upwards of twenty columns. This bibliography will serve to call attention to many important publications hardly known in England ; while we are pleased to see that English books, including the publica- tions of our own Folk-Lore Society, occupy a place on almost every page of the second part. The body of the work is divided into three chapters : (i) Introduction; (2) Welcome and Homage to Spring; (3) Agricultural-religious Rituals. Almost every page contains numerous references in footnotes to authorities quoted, scarcely a statement being made without a clear reference to its source ; and though most of the quotations are from the Russian, many verses are cited from old and modern English, French, and German songs, as well as from less-known languages.

Like many other Russian writers the author sometimes uses foreign words in Russian characters, such as " Ritual," which will not be found in a Russian dictionary.

W. F. Kirby.