Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/166

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all changed into animals.'" This is not bad for ]:)eople who are far from primitive. Here, too, we have strange l)eliefs about the snake, the ne/pi/i, which find a parallel in Manipur and among the Naga tribes in contact vvith Kukis of the Thado clan. Students of various forms of social structure will find much delight in un- ravelling the various systems of marriage to be found in this area. Neither wild horses nor all the honeyed arguments of an eloquent editor shall drag from me my theory of the strange happenings among the Chiru, where one forlorn group of maidens seems con- demned to go unwed or to have to import their husbands.

In every aspect the book is of very great importance and value, and, knowing well the patience and care with which its facts were collected and investigated, I can heartily commend it to all who seek to know what manner of men are they who thirty years ago were the terror of the plains below, and now read news. l)apers and draw interesting plans of the road to Heaven, which accrued to the man who took heads.

T. C. HODSON.

The Book of Protection : being a Collection of Charms now edited for the first time from Syriac MSS. With Translation, Introduction, and Notes by Hermann Gollancz, M.A., D.Litt. Oxford Univ. Press, 19 12, 8vo, pp. Ixxxvii -I- vii -F 103, 27 ill. IDS. 6d. n.

Charms are always difficult to obtain and to collect. People fight shy of communicating them, and those who possess the charms will, as I can say from personal experience, obstinately refuse to tell the charm to any one else, as it is said that the charm nmst be stolen, for if it is directly given it loses its efiicacy. The witch or the one who endeavours to become a sorcerer must " overhear ' the older one repeating the charm or conjuration, and thus learn to know it. Nor are charms transmitted in a written form. But happily even sorcerers and wizards suffer from a bad memory, and so, from olden times, they evidently found it necessary to prepare such manuals for their pupils or for refreshing their own memory. In olden times it was, however, dangerous to keep such records.