Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/257

 Reviews. 233

The author thus sums up the result of his investigation of the various Greek stories of journeys to the Otherworld (pp. 60-61): Two themes are involved : the hero penetrates to the Otherworld to release a captive mistress, or to win a treasure (magic cattle or steeds, a wonder-working harp, golden apples, &c.) belonging to the chief of the land. At times the Otherworld is a place of gloom and horror ; at times it is still the old land of light and of the gods of light.

Now the Irish stories, as will be recollected by readers of my book, describe the Otherworld solely in the latter aspect, and they contain a theme which Mr. Radermacher fails to detect in Greek myth : the hero does not go the Otherworld of his own will in pursuance of a quest to turn to his own advantage, he is summoned, nay constrained, to go thither by the amorous caprice of a goddess. This theme is not really absent from Greek myth, as Mr. Radermacher himself shows (pp. in-112), but he fails to appreciate the significance of the facts he cites. Had he been acquainted with the Irish evidence he would I am sure have recognised that the myths he has studied, though recorded at a far earlier period than the Irish tales, belong in reality to a later and more advanced stage of development.

Mr. Radermacher's investigation of the Jason story would certainly have been modified had he known my discussion of the " escaping couple " theme ( Waifs and Strays of Celtic Traditioti, vol. ii., pp. 437-443). On p. 66 he gives a very interesting illustra- tion from a 5th century Attic vase showing Jason swallowed by the dragon and brought up again at the command of Athene. It is noteworthy that in the Gaelic Sea Maiden the hero is likewise swallowed by a sea monster and brought up by the magic playing of the heroine (Campbell, Popular Tales, No. 4).

I commend afresh Mr. Radermacher's book to those English scholars who still fancy that there is something " unscientific " in using popular literature, and I would recommend the author to study Celtic mythic romance and what has been done in this country to elucidate it.

Alfred Nutt.