Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/295

 Reviews. 267

in its fifth edition to a considerable but inexpensive account of folk-medicine, plant symbolism, folk-etymologies, etc. Folklorists will find it worth purchasing for reference, even though the Teutonic "Volksseele" is a little too much insisted upon.

A similarly cheaj) and attractively written handbook of British plants, — not a Flora Symbolica of literary quotations, but a com- plete and up-to-date description of the names and uses of plants amongst our own folk, and of the beliefs antl superstitions that have clustered round them, — would be a worthy enterprise. Existing works covering this ground, or parts of it, are either expensive, too diffuse and international, or old and out of print. But would a British handbook reach its fifth edition, or even find a publisher, unless it masqueraded as a "Language of Flowers"?

D. H. MouTRAV Read.

Wanderings in the Isle of Wight. By Ethel C. Hargrove. Andrew Melrose, 19 13. 8vo, j^p. x -1-3 12. 6s. //.

There is reference to a certain amount of Island folklore in this pleasant gossip of a guide book, besides the Chapter officially concerned with it ; and in Chap. iv. some of the Island games are given, with the words of two singing-games. The Farmer's in his Den (pp. 48-9) and Oa/s and Barley (p. 50), both still played by the children. Occasional reference is made to the sources of tiie information given, — it would be interesting to know on what authority Miss Hargrove gives a " Druid's" hymn on p. 166. The argument that the Roman Vectis was the Ictis of Diodorus Siculus is given here apparently only on the authority of a writer in The Gentleman's Magazine of 1789, and the existence of a tradition that traffic between the Wight and the Hampshire coast used to be possible in carts at low tide. The point is one of interest to warrant further examination, and has engaged the attention of experts for many decades. The Scilly Isles and the Isle of Thanet have their claims also, upheld by rival schools. Elton, in his Origins of English History, effectively combats the arguments advanced on