Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/147

 Reviews. 135

dissertation to two large volumes, one published in Jassy, and the second taken up by the Roumanian Academy, and published in its Memoirs in the year 191 1.

The author follows quite original lines in his investigation. He studies in the first volume the linguistic side, and in the second the folklore side of the problem. Scarcely any one has preceded him whom he could follow as a guide. In the first part he had no one. For the second part he follows more or less the indica- tions given by me in my History of Roumanian Literature as far back as 1887.

It is an extremely interesting attempt to fix the linguistic forms, names, and meanings of riddles, — (in Roumanian there are a good many names for riddles), — the importance of the riddle for dialectic and archaic forms of language preserved in riddles, the transformation and adaptation by assimilation and dissimilation, and the creation of new words in the language. It is not here the place to discuss this extremely important part of the study, which might prove profitable for similar researches in other languages, as everywhere riddles are cast in a peculiar formula. They are rhythmical, full of alliteration and abbrevia- tions and amplifications, which, so far as I am aware, have hitherto not been utilized for the study of the language. A number of words etymology of which has baffled the investigator are now explained by Dr. Pascu through the use to which they have been put in the popular riddle.

To the student of folklore the second part is certainly the m.ore attractive. We have here for the first time an exhaustive investi- gation of the rules and principles which lie at the root of the formation of riddles. The author has utilized ail the existing collections, including those of Gorovei and Pamfilie. He has studied all the variants, not only from Roumania proper, but also from the Bukowina, Transylvania, and even as far south as the Kutzo Vlachs in Macedonia, but has not attempted, except on rare occasions, comparison with the riddles of other peoples.

The work undertaken by Zane in twelve huge volumes for Roumanian proverbs remains still to be done for Roumanian riddles by some one who will follow up Dr. Pascu's lead. The former collected all the Roumanian proverbs, attempted