Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/275

 Reviews. 253

the first object of the book, there are a hundred and one allusions which are of great interest to students of that branch of learning.

Let me quote the " one," for it brings back to my memory the echoes of the " fairy controversy " and Mr. MacRitchie's use of the quotation in his Testh?iony of Tradition :

" I am a man, upo' the Ian',

An' I am a silkie in the sea ; And when I'm far and far frae Ian' My dwelling is in Sule Skerrie."

There are plenty of such passages for the folklorist to delight himself with.

Bertram C. A. Windle.

Les Reliques et les Images Legendaires. Par P. Saintyves. Paris: Mercure de France, 191 2.

M. Saintyves is already known to students of comparative religion by his books on Supernatural Birth and on the Saints as cultural successors of pagan divinities. In the present volume he treats of relics and sacred images to which a tradition of miraculous origin attaches. His subject is not entirely confined to Christian relics and images. One chapter is devoted to relics of Buddha, and frequent reference for purposes of comparison is made to Buddhism and to the paganism of classical antiquity in the other chapters.

Here, as in his former works, the author is preoccupied by the continuity of religious ideas and practices. The Ficiis Religiosa was a sacred Hindu tree before Gautama obtained enlightenment beneath its branches ; and Mr. Crooke is quoted to show that it is still the sacred tree of modern Brahmanism. The footprints of the Buddha were almost all originally attributed to Vishnu ; and the honour has, since Buddhism has been driven out of Hindustan, reverted to the ancient god. The worship of talismans and relics fallen from heaven, widely practised in Europe, is deduced from the veneration of aeroliths and weapons of the Stone Age current