Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/359

Rh It is traced back step by step to very early times (Helmold, Chronicle of the Slavs). There follow still more variants from Germany, France, Brittany, etc. The most ancient religions in their records (Greek, Persian, Zend-Avesta, etc.) show the same idea.

6. A careful general analysis of the first three editions of Erben's Collection of Bohemian Folk Songs, in which also the extraordinary period in which it was brought out is well illustrated, and the sane handling of a matter too often spoilt by dilettantism is shown well. A warning is given against the text by Hynek—the alleged corrected edition.

Perhaps I had better refer to the allusion on p. 22 to Folklore, xxii. 382, where, while agreeing with my friend Malinowski about the desirability of the comparative study of the folklore material of Bohemia and Poland, he justly objects to the ridiculous description of Bohemia (which I can hardly believe he wrote) as forming "an ethnical island among German-speaking peoples." Well may the editor say, "If a Pole writes so, what are we to expect of an English reader?"

7. This is by way of a reply to a criticism in the ''Zeitschr. für österreich. Volkskunde'', xvi. 160 sq., by Herr J. Blau aus Freihöls of a work called Laces and Lace-making of the Slavonic People, by the late M. A. Smolková and R. Bíbová. The blankly uncritical attitude of Herr Blau, who simply states that no Slav could be in so high a state of culture as to invent the lace-making process, is illustrated first, while R. Bíbova welcomes any nation's offering of evidence on this complex question. Sewn lace was a Greek invention, introduced into Italy in the twelfth century; the pillow lace is not claimed by any one. R. Bíbová claims it for an invention of the Slavs. A contrast is shown between the West European lace-maker with her drawn patterns to follow and her Slav sister, who works entirely by memory and manipulates the bobbins so wonderfully. It does not follow that it is wrong to consider the Slavonic as the original form and the West European form as the development. Their theory is that lace-making arose from weaving, but Herr Blau muddles things up so that one is bound to see the partisan character of his work. She states the ground of her belief on technical lines and proceeds with a