Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/407

Rh social tradition. These associations often prevent application of the principles of causality. But belief is not always amenable to logic in civilized society.

M. Lévy-Bruhl's work is most valuable in that it directs attention to the importance of collective mental processes as dynamic factors in the formation of the beliefs and institutions of primitive society. But the author ought not to have disregarded the influence of the individual, which is already very prominent amongst the lowest peoples we know. The consideration of this factor would have made the work less brilliantly paradoxical but more useful.

This is the most complete account of the folklore of any English county that has yet appeared. If it does not equal Shropshire Folklore in the number of its pages, it excels it in the quality of its matter, for since the publication of the former work, now nearly thirty years ago, the advance of folklore study has turned what were then thought interesting parallels and explanations into mere truisms and padding. Mrs. Leather has therefore been well advised to omit all but the very slightest tincture of commentary from her collections. She has been peculiarly successful in recovering traditional songs and music, aided by Dr. Vaughan Williams, who reduced her phonographic records to writing. But her survey of the field has throughout been singularly thorough. It covers the following subjects:—Natural Objects, Tree and Plant Superstitions, Animal Life, Supernatural Phenomena, Witchcraft, Diviners, Divination and Magic, Leechcraft, and Miscellaneous Superstitions, the Year, Festivals, and Seasons, Ceremonial Customs, Games, Sports, Pageants, and Plays, Local Customs, Folk-tales, Traditional Carols, Ballads and Songs, Place and Person Legends, Riddles, Toasts, Rhymes, Proverbs, and Gibes.