Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/150

 1 1 8 Reviews.

at all : it is simply a picturesque account of an actual embas- sage in which the ambassador had some interesting adventures, that is all. Prof. Wiedemann says it is an advertisement of the virtues and power of the god Amen, as the stOry of the " Possessed Princess of Bekhten " is an advertisement of the virtues and power of another god, Khonsu. But this can hardly be, for in the history of Uenamen, the ambassador of Amen is most evilly entreated of pirates and other wicked folk, and has a very bad time generally. If it was intended as an advertisement of Amen, it was a very bad one. The Theban priests would hardly cry such very stinking fish !

As Prof. Wiedemann points out in his preface, the great interest of these stories is their age. The actual papyri which contain them were written between 2000 and 1000 B.C. We advise any "readers of Folk-Lore who are not acquainted with these, the oldest of the world's tales, to peruse this, the latest edition of them.

H. R. Hall.

The Heroic Saga-cycle of Dietrich of Bern. By F. E. Sandbach. (No. 15 of Popular Studies. Nutt.)

This is a condensed but very interesting summary of the main features of a highly complex romantic cycle. In common with most modern scholars, Mr. Sandbach accepts the identity of Dietrich of Bern with Theodoric of Verona, the famous king of the Ostrogoths. After a brief account of the historical facts, the writer shows how the monarch of history became converted into the hero of romance ; and how, by contamination with other saga-cycles, such as those of Ermeric, Attila, and Siegfried, his story finally assumed the confused and complicated form in which it has come down to us.

Brief summaries of the leading romances conclude this inter- esting study of a body of romance literature which, we fear.