Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/296

 268 Reviews.

behalf of Cornwall and the Wight, but admits that he was not able to prove the possibility of direct land communication between the tin districts in Cornwall and the Kentish coast. Recent research tends to prove it more probable. I have myself partly traced a possible trade route from the west, linking up eventually with other routes connecting with London and Reculven. This diffi- culty of transport solved, the probability of Thanet being Iciis, as against the Isle of Wight, are overwhelming. The disputed paragraph itself speaks of the ford at low tide as " something peculiar that happens to the islands in those parts lyiftg between Europe and Britain^ The italics are mine.

However, the pages of most interest to the folklorist are those wherein the author retells Abraham Elder's story of the Newtown Pied Piper (p. 24S). Point for point the tale tallies with the legend Robert Browning's lines have made so familiar, except that the Hamelin Piper left the river, and "turned from south

to west

And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,"

luring the children into the mountain cavern, but the Piper of the Wight led them eventually north into the waters of the Solent. Rumours of the existence of this legend came to me some years ago, but lacked confirmation till this book reached me, with its story from the pages of Tales a?idLege?ids of the Isle of Wight.

D. H. JMouTRAY Read.

Kullervo-Hamlet. Ein sagenvergleichender Versuch. Von E. N. Setal'a. Reprinted from Finnish- Ugrischen Fors- chungen,\o\'?,.\\\.,y\\.,y^. Helsingfors : 8vo, pp. vi + 197.

It has been remarked, e.g. by Comparetti, how curiously little influence the legends and literature of their Scandinavian neigh- bours have had upon Finnish popular compositions. This inter- esting work attempts to show that one of the most important Finnish cycles, the tale of KuUervo (best known in Lonnrot's version, Kalevala, XXXI.-XXXVL), is borrowed from the story of Hamlet.