Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/573

 Reviews. 531

some god " etc. (p. 350). That is, the presence in historical Greece of a hideously barbarous rite, mentioned with abhorrence by Greeks, for a purpose foreign to their beliefs, — for all their deities were accessible to ordinary prayer, and to kill a man was not to send him to the gods but simply to the Underworld, where he would be cut off from communication with the greater portion of them, — is to be forced out of a passage which states simply that such a rite took place among certain savages ! Another misinterpretation of the same author, which we have not space to quote, occurs on p. 501, and similar blunders are scattered up and down the whole book.

When we turn, however, from Mr. Lawson's theories of ancient religion to his facts about modern and mediaeval folklore, we find less to criticise and much to interest us. Thus, the examples of survivals of polytheistic beliefs are noteworthy. We mention a few ; continual reference in popular stories etc. to ra '^onepiKoi, the "outside," i.e. pagan, spirits, conceived as really existing and not necessarily and entirely malignant; the quaint Athenian blessing, va o-' d^uocrrj 6 Oebs va iV)(api(TTT^crrj<s Oeovs Kal dv6pu)Trov? ; belief in local daimones {a-Toiyijetd) ; tales of a mysterious per- sonage once actually called r} Seo-jrotva, who seems to be simply one of the Chthonian goddesses, perhaps Demeter ; belief in the Fates (Mot/oats), in fairies called NepatSes, and in the Lamia. We are glad also to get further information about the " Callicantzari," as Mr. Lawson calls them, — Mr. Abbott, using a slightly different form of that Protean name, says " Karkantzari," — formidable and exceedingly filthy bogeys who prowl, it would appear, especially about Christmas time. Without accepting Mr. Lawson's attempt to derive their name and functions from the Centaurs, — we should emphatically label them " non-Greek," leaving it to experts to decide whether they are Slavonic, Turkish, or what not, — we recommend these gentry to all folklorists. Equally interesting is the account of modern funeral customs, in which traces of crema- tion may be found ; and also the survival of the common ancient metaphor of death as a marriage, — if survival it be ; at least it is an interesting parallel. We wish, however, that Mr. Lawson had been a little more critical in the selection of his materials, if he did not want to publish all he had collected. When (p. 339) he