Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/282

 246 Reviews.

alleged parallel, — as implying community of origin between Hellenic and Brythonic heroic myth, or influence of mediaeval Welsh by Graeco-Roman literature. Here again I must frankly say that many of the terms of the parallel strike me as so vague as to be altogether inconclusive, and that those which are most striking are of comparative unimportance in the respective sagas of the two heroes. If we compare the entire life-history of Achilles with that of Peredur, we fail, in my opinion, to trace any such organic kinship as obtains, for instance, between the sagas of Peredur and Finn, or of either and Cuchulinn. If it is urged that a mediaeval Welsh story-teller borrowed from such versions of the Achilles story as may have been accessible to him, I believe he would in such a case, forcedly, have borrowed more and made the likeness much closer.

I trust I have made clear the pregnant significance of the few pages which Dr. Evans has given to these questions of date, origin, and nature. Acceptance of his statements would imply the existence (a) in eleventh-century Wales of a romantic Arthur legend which had already entered the stage of decadence, i.e. of humorous semi-parodistic treatment; and {b) in early twelfth-century Wales of a fully-developed Grail legend presenting substantially the same series of incidents as we find in the Conte del Graal of 1 170-1200. The brief form in which these far-reaching views are stated may easily mislead concerning their essential importance ; this must be my excuse for a notice which is well nigh as long as the text upon which it comments. All future Mabinogion criticism must take account of what Dr. Evans has here written.

Alfred Nutt.

The Hooden Horse. By Percy Maylam. Canterbury : Privately Printed, 1909. 4to., pp. xvi-t-124. 5 Plates.

This is an admirable piece of work, careful, thorough, unambitious, and complete in itself Mr. Maylam has all the humour and sympathy and unfeigned enjoyment of his informants' society and doings that go to the making of a genuine collector, and adds to