Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/387

 Reviews. 351

The need of references is emphasised by the inaccuracy of some of the quotations which we can test. "Frailty, thy name is woman," is, we are told (p. 13), "a German proverb."

"A bustling {sic) woman and crowing hen Are neither fit for gods nor men,"

is given as a parallel to "Une poule qui chante le coq, et une fille qui jiffle {sic), portent malheur dans la maison."

One of the most remarkable statements is " Eastern proverbs are highly complimentary to women " (p. 2), whereas the book is largely made up of the old silly jibes at the sex which abound in Oriental literature. Surely the time has passed when crusted, stupid sneers directed against women as a whole are either interesting or instructive.

There is much to be done in the way of popularising folk- lore, and the author might, if he would adopt sounder methods, assist in this good work. But we doubt if a public which patronises books of this class is likely to be attracted to a serious study of the subject. Mr. Thistleton-Dyer has collected many interesting facts, but the value of his book, as a treatise on this branch of folk-lore, is lost through over-haste in compilation, faulty arrangement, and a neglect of the principle that a book may be accurate and readable at the same time.

W. Crooke.

Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race. By the late T. W. Shore. London : Elliot Stock, 1906.

Ancient Law. By Sir Henry Sumner Maine, with Intro- duction and Notes by Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart. London : John Murray, 1906.

The Tribal System in Wales. By Frederic Seebohm. London: Longmans, 1904.

The late Mr. Shore's Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race represents the laborious collection of evidence in support of a theory which is succinctly stated in the final chapter of the book. " All the