Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/304

 2/6 Reviews.

The question of the actual storj'-telling is one of great interest. Evidently the Russian Mdrchen has been very considerably influenced in form by the professional i^cide pp. 5, 126). One is reminded of the Gaelic analogy.* The German tales have not been dominated by the professional, and, while it is quite true that amateurs are differently gifted, the gifted amateur raconteur, such as Frau Vichmannin (p. 6), is very different from the professional storyteller.

Interesting, too, are the reflections of social conditions and historical factors in folk-tales. The distribution of the disbanded soldier as the hero might repay investigation. He is popular in Russia as well as in Germany and France.

The restriction of the field of discussion by the intensive method has of course its peculiar dangers. There are some explanations of phenomena offered in the course of the book that seem doubtful. It is dangerous, I fancy, to dismiss Mdrchen as founded on mediaeval works and romances, and therefore not true folk-tale. One cannot help remembering that the works and romances are themselves for the great part Mdrchen worked up. I am dubious as to the suggestion that the matrimonial difficulties, which arise where the hero rescues more than one princess in successive adventures, are due to faulty narration. It is a phenomenon with which a student of Greek folk-tale is ver}* familiar. Clearly from the Turkish parallels the stories are originally polygamous, and it is the fault of the story, not of any clumsiness on the part of the narrator, that its adaptation to a monogamous society strains its framework.

It will be seen that there are a host of interesting points raised and suggested in the book. Once more it is very desirable that the author should supplement it on a wider scale. The Russian stories, as I had imagined from such material as was accessible in translation, belong definitely to a Near Eastern group. The members of this group differ naturally among themselves in detail, but from the point of view of their common differences from Western European stories they are comparatively homogeneous. We should like to know more about the differences in the popu-

- Compare, for instance, the remarks of Dr. Douglas Hyde in the introductioD to his Beside the Fire.