Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/244

 CORRESPONDENCE.

Translations of Folklore Publications.

The Annual Report of the Council for 1905 contains the statement that Mr. Bower's Ceri of Gubbio is the first publica- tion of the Society to be translated into a foreign language. This is not so. Mr. W, G. Black's Folk-medicine has been translated into Spanish ; Dr. Gregor's Folk-lore of the North-east of Scotland into Italian ; several articles by the late Mr. Coote, also into Italian ; the articles on the Science of Folklore^ which appeared in the Journal for 1885, into Chinese; and the Handbook of Folklore into several languages, including Japanese.

It is a pity that the Council should not have made them- selves acquainted with these facts before committing themselves to a definite statement.

G. Laurence Gomme.

The Legend of Merlin. (Vol. xvi., p. 462.)

Surely Dr. Gaster has forgotten that Layamon was a priest! Whence did he derive his material — the stories of Merlin's birth, the Fairies' prophecy of Arthur's future greatness, the wild account of the founding of the Round Tables, and all the extraneous matter with which he " farced " Wace ? Surely not from his liturgical books !

With regard to the relative priority of the poetic and prose romances, those who had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Caster's