Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/259

 Reviews. 235

varying skull shape. I assert that such types do exist, and have found expression in literature, in institution, in, to use a German term for which there is no plain equivalent in our tongue, Weltansch- auung, for over i,ooo years at least. The recognition of this fact enables one to understand and appreciate many and various his- torical phenomena ; whereas statistics of relative nigrescence, &c., leave us little, if any, wiser than would statistics about the number of mince pies eaten at Christmas in different parts of the country.

Alfred Nutt.

The Cattle-raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cuailnge). An old Irish Prose-epic Translated by L. Winifred Faraday, M.A. (Grimm Library.) David Nutt.

At last the public are to have in their hands full translations of the chief Irish Prose-romance, the Tain B6 Cuailnge. Miss Winifred Faraday comes first with her translation (unfortunately unaccompanied by the text) of the versions from the Yellow Book of Lecan (Y. B. L.) and the Leabhar na h-Uidhre (L. U.), while we hear from another source that the last sheets of Dr. Windisch's long-promised edition of the Book of Leinster version have passed through the press. Thus, in the course of a few weeks, it will be possible to compare the two main versions of the story side by side. From the purely literary point of view, it is perhaps a pity that the Book of Leinster (L. L.) version has not been published first ; it is fuller of detail, more explanatory and more picturesque, and it shows a more poetic sense of the dramatic evolution and sequence of the tale. To give a single example. The Tain or Cattle-raid, which forms the subject of this romance, has been undertaken by Medb, Queen of Connaught, for the purpose of gaining possession of a famous bull owned by a chief of Leinster, and which is coveted by the avaricious Queen. The great number of Irish tales founded on similar themes proves that these romances hail from a period when the country was in a purely pastoral con- dition, and wealth consisted, not in money or in land, but in cattle and live stock. The acquirement of more cattle was regarded as a fit purpose on which to embark on a lengthy war, and the frequency of these cattle-lifting expeditions must have kept the country in a perpetual state of ferment.