Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/285

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Molly or Bessy, and the Hobbyhorse, though they were not all invariably present. Two of them appear in the Hooden Horse party, and, on the analogy of the feats of the circus clown, the Fool may be represented by the Rider or Jockey. (The particoloured costume worn by the tambourine player in Plate A resembles that frequently worn by the Fool in the mumming plays ; and on page 92 is a mention of the hoodeners " knocking one another about with sticks and bladders," — the characteristic action of the Fool). The whole affair seems to us to be a performance of these grotesques without the dancers or actors. Mr. Maylam confesses that he has found no trace of Robin Hood in Kent.

We should be inclined to connect the name " Hooden " with the covering worn by the *' Horse," which, from the photographs, resembles a rude edition of the " hoods " (always so known in the stable world) worn by valuable horses on journeys etc. to protect them from the weather. Search might be made for the use of " hood " as a verb, meaning to cover or disguise (cf. a hooded hawk). But these are guesses. All one can say is that the genealogy of the Hooden Horse probably goes much further back than the days of Robin Hood, who, so far as Mr. Maylam's evidence goes, does not appear to have penetrated to the Isle of Thanet.

We must congratulate Mr. Maylam most warmly on an excellent bit of work. Let us hope he will be persuaded to continue his local investigations. Kentish collectors of folklore are "sadly to seek," and Mr. Maylam is a collector of the first rank. A word of praise must be added for the care he has bestowed on the paper and illustrations, so as to ensure the durability of his record ; a matter which, as he remarks in his preface, is too often overlooked, thereby, as will one day be discovered, wasting all the labour bestowed on making it.

Charlotte S. Burne.

Old Etruria and Modern Tuscany. By Mary Lovett Cameron. Methuen, 1909. 8vo, pp. xxii + 332. 32 ill.

In this unpretentious work, which modestly claims only to be a portable guide to Etruscan sites and museums and to