Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/282

 246 Reviews.

contains what we may call the non-literary tales, while those which come into literature, especially Greek and Indian, will appear in the next volume.

If the editor's experience has led him aright, he has found out an important point. While he admits that like conditions produce like results in this field, yet he thinks that it is easier to prove transmission than independent analogies. He would certainly see transmission if the tales contain several like " motives." Although the transmitted tales, — those known to be such, — come in the fourth volume, yet here the hypothesis must be borne in mind also. There are some remarkable analogies between Asia and America, and between Finland and the East and America.

It is instructive to see the modern story-maker at work. A story from Crane's Italian Tales was told in 1886 to an American Indian, and next year the editor got it back in a new and extended form. Both are given in the preface (pp. viii et seq.).

The subjects under which the tales are grouped include the origin of various peculiarities of animals, — shape, colour, tail, and so forth, — their names and lairs, their movemeMts and qualities, their food, friendship, and enmity, and their changes. There is special interest in the tales which describe the source of fire (pp. 93 et seq.), and the soul-bird (pp. 476 £•/ J^^.). Nearly fifty different creatures are credited with the bringing of fire, and amongst them are the frog and the tortoise. Classical students will remember the eagle set free at the cremation of an emperor.

The book is full of matter, and may be heartily recommended.

W. H. D. Rouse.

ScHLESiscHE Sagen. I. Spuk- und Gespenstersagen. II. Elben-, Damonen, und Teufelsagen. (Schlesiens Volkstiimliche Uberlieferungen.) Von Richard Kuhnau. Leipzig: Teubner, 1910-11. 8vo, pp. xxxviii-h 618, xxxii -h 746.

This is not the first book of Silesian folk-tales; but it is the first comprehensive collection. It is clear from the introduction that