Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/149

Rh antecedent to the modern science of folklore. They wrote only and solely for the purpose of amusing the people. But, if they had not written, Roumanian literature would have been much poorer in many directions. It was reserved to our time to gather up the material, to classify and to study it in a methodical and scientific manner, and to draw new conclusions of which those who lived in the beginning of the eighteenth century had not even dreamt.

Dr. Pascu has done his work on the best approved scientific lines, systematically and methodically, and he has placed the students of riddles as well as of Roumanian folklore under a special debt of gratitude. His books are, moreover, beautifully printed.

is already well known to students who are interested in Bantu peoples by his tiny, but excellent, collection of folk-lore of the Anyanja in the original language, with translation and notes. Entering the Government service in Nigeria,—he is now Assistant Commissioner in Ashanti,—he has utilized his new field of experience for the study of natives belonging to a different race and with quite different customs. The two fine volumes before us are the first-fruits of his labours, and he has been lucky enough to secure a preface by his former tutor, the President of the Folk-Lore Society. The President's writing is always attractive, though it was hardly necessary to commend work which bears on its face its own sufficient credentials.

The plan adopted was to get a learned native malam, or scribe, to write down the tales and other texts in Hausa. These were then transliterated and translated by Mr. Rattray; and the original texts are printed on one page, with the transliteration and translation on the opposite page. The primary object of the book is instruction for students in the Hausa language; but it has been made to serve also the needs of students of Hausa culture and