Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/148

 1 3 2 Reviews.

An excellent article, in the guise of a lecture delivered at the University of Brussels, discusses the study of rites and myths and their relation to one another. Here, after considering other methods of study and interpretation, he puts in a powerful plea for his own method expounded in his little book on Les Rites de Passage. It consists in always studying the sequence of which any given rite forms part, and never, as too often is done, tearing it from its context and attempting to study i-t apart, — a method that cannot conduce to certain results, and too often leads the enquirer wildly astray. Elsewhere he returns to his Savoyard studies, begun in previous volumes. In a fascinating dissertation he traces the influence of the Chansons de Geste on the folklore of Savoy, showing how stories have been transferred from literary romances and localized. Following the pilgrimage routes over the Alps, he demonstrates that they are dotted with places in which mysteries and passion plays were represented, and from whence the custom of performing sacred dramas did not penetrate to other towns of Savoy until the seventeenth century. The volume closes with a powerful plea for the. preservation of dialects. In connection with this should be read an article in the second series on the theory of special languages, slang and jargon included, as demanded by the progress of the organization of society.

In the foregoing paragraphs I have only attempted to notice a few of the more salient essays contained in these volumes. M. van Gennep's style is clear and straightforward, he is always thought- ful, his arguments are frequently weighty, and his interests touch almost every side of folklore and ethnography.

E. Sidney Hartland.

Church and Manor. A Study in English Economic History. By S. O. Addy. George Allen & Co., 19 13. Demy 8vo, pp. XXX + 473. 111. los. 6d. n.

Mr. Addy terms his book " A Study in English Economic History." The bulk of its 456 pages of text is devoted to an exposi- tion of the very many and varying ways in which the mediaeval village church ministered to the temporal as well as the spiritual