Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/270

 2 34 Reviews.

in the form of an elaborate and psychological poem. Again,, is it possible that the incident of the surrender of Iseult to the lepers, an incident unparalleled in all Mediaeval literature for sheer unredeemed brutality, is a part of the same tradition as that which has preserved the gracious touch of Mark shielding his sleeping and fugitive wife from the rays of the sun? It seems more probable that there were from the first two distinct streams of tradition, in one of which Mark was a gentle, kindly figure, loth to believe ill of those he loved so dearly, and ready, even to weakness, to be convinced of their innocence : another in which he was cowardly, vindictive, and treacherous — the version followed by Thomas belongs undoubtedly to the former. Nor does M. Bedier quite grasp the problem of the messenger who summons Iseult to her lover's death-bed. What does Tristan need with a " host " there, where he is in his own home? The disappearance of Governal, who certainly ought to be the messenger, from the closing scenes of the poem, is a point difficult of explanation, and which should not be ignored.

Tempting as the theory is, we feel ourselves unable to accept the view so ably urged in these volumes ; but nevertheless M. Bedier has given us a piece of work of great interest and real literary value, one which no future writer on English literature

can afford to neglect.

Jessie L. Weston.

At the Back of the Black Man's Mind ; or, Notes on THE Kingly Office in West Africa. By R. E. Dennett, Author of " Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Fjort," etc. Macmillan & Co., 1906.

This is a most perplexing book. At first sight it seems a jumble of unrelated facts, and of speculations which one is tempted to class, with M. Van Gennep,^ as dignes de la Kabbah. The disjointed and fragmentary character of some chapters — which

'^ Revtie des Id4es, 15 Jan., 1907 ; " Un systeme negre de classification."