Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/144

112 be drawn from them, though, as he is careful to point out, the north and centre of France have been much better exploited by collectors of folklore than the south, with the exception of certain districts of the south-west.

Space would not avail me to enumerate the interesting matters which come under review in these two volumes. The exact citation of authorities, the special enquiries undertaken by the author in respect of lacunœ noticed while collating his materials, and his comparison of traditions and superstitions reported by ancient and mediæval writers, enhance very greatly the value of his work. Is it too much to hope that we shall ever get a Dictionary of British Folklore to compare with it?

Author:Edwin Sidney Hartland

old and young of nearly every race of the world are now known to play games in which objects, natural or artificial, are imitated by making figures of string. These figures are often of great interest to the folklorist, for they may illustrate features of magical practice, and may even, as Dr. Haddon suggests in his introduction to this book, be survivals in play of rites into which strings or knots have entered. Again, during or at the end of the formation of a figure, phrases are often said or sung which may put the investigator on the track of features of religious or social custom which he might otherwise have missed, while the phrases themselves may provide the philologist with words otherwise extinct. In addition to the direct value of the games to the worker among races of low culture, there is also an indirect value, which can hardly be over-estimated, in bringing him into sympathy with those who are, for the time being, his fellow-workers. Hours spent in the trivialities of cat's-cradle may be well repaid by help given in paving the way