Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/271

 Correspondence. 235

one; etc., etc. When the basis is unsound, it is waste of time to criticise details of the superstructure.

If my distrust of the theory could be intensified, it would be by Dr. Pokorny's advocacy of ' pre-Aryan ' hypotheses in their wildest form. Of course the hypothetical cuckoo saga is, like Druidism and other characteristic traits of Celtic culture as known to us historically, taken over from the pre-Celtic inhabitants of Ireland. These were, in part, probably Finns. Dr. Pokorny has seen a photograph of an Esthonian peasant which reminded him strongly of a non- Aryan Irishman ; in Esthonian saga the cuckoo, Kukkulind, plays a great part."* As a matter of fact there are ' very few pure Celts ' in Ireland ; where the Irish are dark-haired they are pre-Celtic, Finnish or Iberian ; where they are fair-haired and blue-eyed, they are " probably for the most part of Germanic origin," (p. 108). I do not see how it is possible to make any serious progress in Celtic or in mythological studies on such lines • as these. Instead of starting from a fixed point, — a definite litera- ture in Gaelic or Brythonic appealing presumably to men of Gaelic or Brythonic blood and culture, — of which we can know something, we assume a hypothetical stage of which at the best we can know nothing definite, and gaily build on further our ' Cuckoo-City in the Clouds ' !

Like Sir John Rhys I welcome Dr. Pokorny as a Celtic student. He has enthusiasm and imagination. I am sure he will do useful work. But, as for his theory, I say, topically, Hoi' sie den Kukkuk!

Alfred Nutt.

The Future Work of the Folk-Lore Society.

{Ante, pp. 101-2.)

Mr. E. S. Hartland, in reviewing recently two volumes of M. Sebillot's Folklore de France, expressed the hope that we might

■* Philology is a mystery with which a layman like myself fears to meddle. But I cannot help pointing out that the word cuckoo is onomatopoeic. The backbone of the word is the medial ck. In the nature of things this must be so. But the name of the Irish hero is pronounced Coo-hSo-Wxm. Irish phone- ticians can perhaps say if there is any evidence that it was ever pronounced CuiT/C'oolinn.