Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/440

 426 Reviews.

complete a general index to the set of volumes would be a useful addition.

Mrs. Roberts has published a small collection of tales recorded by her late husband, who served for thirty-seven years as a mis- sionary among the Khasis. There are in all thirty-six tales, many of them animal stories, explaining how they came to be domesti- cated by man, and giving reasons for facts of nature : " How the Thunder obtained the Lightning " ; " How the Moon got its Shadows"; "The Origin of the Betel Nut and Pan Leaf"; and so on. They are evidently genuine stories, recorded in a simple way, and illustrated by some photographs of the local scenery. This little collection will form an interesting supplement to Lieut. - Col. Gurdon's admirable monograph on the tribe.

It is pleasant to find an Indian landowner, Thakur Rajendra Singh of Sitapur, Oudh, interesting himself in the folklore of his country. In the first volume he has given a translation of that celebrated work, the Singhasan Batitsi, " The Throne with Thirty- two Images," which has already been rendered into English by Mr. C. H. Tawney in his version of the Katha-sarit-sagara. Mr. Tawney's work is not easily procurable, and the present readable version will be useful to students of Indian folk-tales. The second book is a summary of the Great War as recorded in the Mahdbharata. It is timely in the present crisis, and the Thakur draws the moral that Hindus are vitally interested in the result of the present war. It may be hoped that the Thakur will be encouraged by the success of these volumes to do some original work in the collection of folklore and folktales from Oudh, where the field is almost entirely unworked.

W. Crooke.