Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/549

 Reviews. 513

Welsh colony in Patagonia during the author's residence there

(P- 34).

One interesting point which we do not remember to have seen recorded before is that at the beginning of the Christmas holidays the plough was carried into the dwelling-house and placed under the table on which the family took their meals. During the holidays men took the opportunity of visiting their neighbours from house to house, when they were regaled with warm beer, which was always kept ready for visitors at this season. Before drinking, each man poured a little beer upon the plough which lay under the table at which they sat (p. 60). This was in North Pembrokeshire, the Welsh portion of that county. In Pembroke- shire, also, the "cutty wren" was carried about, but on Twelfth Night, not on St. Stephen's Day, and with a set of verses entirely different from the Manx and Irish ditties.

We congratulate our fellow-member, Mr. Davies, on the sim- plicity and straightforwardness of his narratives. Few works of the kind are so free from wordiness and from ambitious and irrelevant " padding,"

Charlotte S. Burne.

La Bretagne Pittoresque et Legendaire. By Paul Yves Sebillot. Paris: H. Daragon, 1911.

M. Paul Yves Sebillot has an hereditary interest not merely in Brittany but in folklore. In this little book, a collection of articles on various subjects relating to his native province, he has contrived to gratify both ; and one cannot rise from its perusal without a better idea of Brittany and of its charms than before. Among the folklore marriage and baptismal customs take a prominent place, while the cult of sacred springs. Midsummer fires, costume, the christening of the fishing boats, and other old- world scenes and celebrations are described with details that will be appreciated by every student. The literary and historical associations of Brittany are not forgotten details are given con-