Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/256

 232 Reviews.

print, so that actual search is necessary to unearth passages dealing with the same phenomena among the different races.

It goes without saying that Dr. Stoll has much to tell us on the subject of initiation fasts. He suggests with great probability that the apparent forgetfulness of the initiant on his return to his old life is, in some measure at least, real and of the nature of suggestive amnesia. It cannot be denied that this view throws a good deal of light on various questions of interest. In Australia the food-tabus work out to the advantage of the class of old men, in spite of the fact that the middle-aged are far stronger in numbers and able, if not restrained by fear, to enforce their will Direct suggestion at the period of initiation may have played its part in making the rules operative.

Many other interesting suggestions are made by Dr. Stoll, for the discussion of which space is lacking. We can only hope that if it reaches a third edition Dr. Stoll will provide it with a better index, and perhaps deal with the phenomena among uncivilised

races in a separate work.

N. W. Thomas.

D.\s Jenseits im Mythos der Hellenen. Untersuchungen iiber antiken Jenseitsglauben. Von L. Radermacher. Bonn : A. Marcus. 1903.

This little volume is of interest to English folklorists as indicating to what lengths the younger classical scholars of Germany are pre- pared to go in the way of utilising existing popular literature for the elucidation of the most archaic Greek mythology ; it is of special interest to myself as dealing with the group of mythic con- ceptions and fancies studied in the first volume of the Voyage of Brail. Mr. Radermacher's constant appeal is to the living folktale ; it is in the light of its fuller presentment that he completes and interprets the antique myth. But his reading has been confined to Northern and East Central European folk-literature. The Celtic material brought together in the Voyage of Bran is unknown to him, and he has therefore failed to see the import of much that he observes, and he employs unnecessary energy in breaking in open doors.