Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/143

Rh tained in each volume are useful guides to those who wish to consult it.

The subjects of the volumes announced in their titles sufficiently indicate their scope. The various divisions and aspects of the subject receive careful consideration, and M. Sébillot has spared no pains to render his treatment of them adequate. The British reader will turn with interest to the chapter on "Encroachments of the Sea," and particularly to the tragic story of the city of Is, of which a famous analogue is found in Wales. Nor will he be disappointed. The distinguished author's local knowledge reinforces his criticism. He traces the tale to its earliest recorded form; he rejects the romantic additions of Souvestre and other writers; he discusses the traditional fragments still or lately found in Brittany; he shows that about the Bay of Audierne there are archaeological remains which point to a great encroachment of the sea; and he comes to the conclusion that some actual event underlies the traditions.

M. Sébillot has been at some pains to prepare statistics relative to the comparative popularity of various items of tradition in different parts of the country. Thus, in discussing the geographical distribution of the belief in the Lavandières de Nuit (cf. Hugh Miller's Scenes and Legends in the North of Scotland, pp. 296), he points out that the chief seat of this superstition is Brittany, where more than half the examples he has brought together from the whole of France are found. There is a gradual diminution as we pass from west to east, until in the extreme east, Alsace-Lorraine, the Vosges and French-speaking Switzerland, only three examples have been collected. Thus these grisly washerwomen are all but unknown in the country of the Langue d'Oc, only two, both in Vaucluse, having been discovered there.

As another example, we may take the cult of trees, of fountains, and of standing stones. Vestiges of the cult of the two latter have been found from one end to the other of the land anciently known as Gaul. With regard to the worship of trees, the case is different. With few exceptions, the instances reported all belong to the old country of the Langue d'Oil. Such results of M. Sébillot's enquiries are very striking, whatever conclusions may