Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/278

 256 Reviews.

entirely independent of Chretien's poem, I am firmly convinced; that it is, strictly speaking, an Other-world adventure, I do not feel so sure. The term ' Other-world ' seems to me to be too easily and loosely applied by modern critics; strictly speaking it connotes the Abode of the Departed, and I should myself always distinguish it from Fairyland, for which Professor Brown seems to consider it a synonym. Oivain is certainly a Fairy-tale, but I do not consider that the evidence points to its being an Other-world adventure. So far as the relations with Chretien's poem are concerned, there seems to me to be indisputable evidence in favour of a source common to both, but reproduced with greater fidelity by the Welsh writer.

J. L. Weston.

VoR FoLKE^T I Oldtiden (Our Race in Early Times). II. Midgard og Menneskelivet (Midgard and the Life of Men). III. Hellighed og HelUgdoin (Sacredness and Sacred Things). IV. Aleiineskelivet og Guderne (The Life of Men and the Gods). 3 vols. By Vilhelm Gr0nbech. Copen- hagen: V. Pios Boghandel, 191 2. 8vo, pp. 271 -f2o8-f- 133.

In these volumes, which form a sequel to Lykkemand 'og Niding (The Lucky Man and the Miscreant), published in 1909, Herr Gr0nbech attempts io reconstruct, on the evidence of Icelandic sagas and other contemporary literature cited in full bibliographical notes, the general social and philosophical outlook of the early Germanic race, and more especially of the Scandinavian branch. He insists very strongly that to judge the old tales from our modern standpoint is to misunderstand them entirely, and he gathers his evidence together into a very vivid picture of a society built up on certain very definite conceptions, whose last traces are to be found to-day in a few obscure folk-customs. As Herr Gr0nbech's volumes are of interest in connection with recent theories of early communal life and consciousness, and are also not yet available in a translation, a somewhat extended notice of their contents has been prepared.

Midgard og Menneskelivet deals with man and his world as