Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/427

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The Herb of Love must be stolen from the Churchyard (p. 233). The people of Valetta launch their barks on the eve of Ascension Day, which is called by the Greek name Lapsi (p. 51). It is cast up against the people of Dingli that at the " Mary Feast," (probably the Assumption), they had "nothing to decorate the picture of the Mother of God but long cucumbers " (p. 58).

The songs grouped as "local and national" yield nothing of interest as to place or people, and those which refer to strangers and strange countries but little. " The sun of England," we learn, " looks as if seen through the bottom of a drum, the oil of the lamp has gone out" (p. 283). One maiden begs her mother to marry her to an Enghsh officer, but only because a Maltese would require a dowry and she has none (p. 75). " Marseilles puppet " is a favourite term of abuse (pp. 284-288). One would have expected that songs from so small an island would have borne much reference to the sea, but boats, seamen, and fishermen have only incidental mention. Religious allusions are equally rare, — priests and nuns are mocked at, and the only pious aspirations which occur are prayers for the acquisition — never for the protec- tion — of lovers (pp. 134, 136).

If people are to be judged by their songs, the Maltese cannot be considered pleasing, or perhaps the collection is made too late, — in a transition period when the romance of the past is buried and the art of the future has yet to be evolved. It is not without sig- nificance that the rababa, the old one-stringed fiddle with which the skilled Arab makes so pleasing an accompaniment to song, is no more used, but has given way to the concertina and the hurdy- gurdy.

Of the extreme linguistic interest of these poems this is not the place to speak. Apart from this their value is perhaps mainly psychological, but it is obvious that their importance in the eyes of so distinguished an Arabic scholar as Professor Stumme is their curious dialect, an Arabic preserved for centuries without the influence of the reading of the Koran, and tainted by admix- ture with Greek, Italian, and, of late years, English.

Hans H. Spoer.