Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/101

 Reviews. 9 1

Christian Church to seize upon sacred places of older rehgions and convert them to Christian worship leads naturally to the suspicion that this took place in many more instances than have been identified. And though many of the festivals and of the sacred names are now known to be far older in one form or another than Christianity, probably more remain to be investi- gated. The author's identifications cannot be regarded as by any means always established ; but his speculations are in- genious and should be kept in view for further research. In particular, his suggestion that creation legends are often or usually the libretto of a seasonal or initiatory ritual should not be forgotten. E_ Sidney Hartland.

Gerald Friedlander. Jewish Fairy Tales. Illustrated by Beatrice HiRSCHFELD. London: R.Scott. 1917. 8vo. Pp. viii4-88.

Out of the vast treasury of Jewish tales, the Rev. Gerald Friedlander has picked out eight tales. Of course, they are no real fairy tales ; it is somewhat of a misnomer. The fairy as we know it from our Western tales is often a mere she-demon in the East, and in these tales there is perhaps only one that approximates to our Western tales. Still they are unquestion- ably characteristic tales, full of the romance of the East, and cast in the mould of the Jewish spirit, independent of whatever their primitive origin may have been. The tales are : I. King Solomon and the Worm, i.e. the legend of the stone cutting Shamir and the adventures of Benayah who was sent to capture Ashmedai, the King of the Demons, who alone possessed the secret of that stone so essential for the building of the Tcmplf without the use of iron.

2. Falsehood and Wickedness, allowed to enter the ark of Noah as a pair. Wickedness agreed to be the mate of Falsehood on condition that Falsehood should give to Wickedness all the profits made in the ark. In the end Wickedness cheats False- hood of the whole of her gains in the ark.