Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/104

 94 Short Notices.

Curiosities in Proverbs : a Collection of Unusual Adages, Maxims, Aphorisms, Phrases, and other Popular Dicta from Many Lands, by Dwight Edwards Marvin. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London. 1916.

The study of proverbs has not attracted the attention it deserves from students of folklore. As an introduction to the subject this book, within its limits, possesses obvious merits. " Ameri- cans," he remarks, " have few proverbs owing to the newness of the country and the fact that people from every land enter into the national life. So-called ' American proverbs ' are not strictly proverbs, but phrases that have grown out of sectional conditions or peculiar circumstances." Proverbs are classified into Proverbs about Proverbs : Singular Proverbs : Obscure Proverbs : Proverbs founded on Historic Incidents, Legends, Folk-tales, etc. : Bible Proverbs : Christmas and Easter Proverbs : Graceful Proverbs : Impossibilities, Absurdities, Superstitions, Fortune and Luck, Weather, Wit and Humour, Local Characteristics and Prejudices, Rhyming, Grouping, Animal, Contradictory, Whimsical, Questions and Answers, Retorts, Quotations, Similes and Comparisons. Each proverb or group of proverbs is furnished with a commentary, and a full list of authorities quoted is given.

Folk-lore, Legend, and Superstitious Customs in con- nection with Andover and its Neighbourhood, by M. Gillett. Andover: Standard Printing Co. 1917. This pamphlet is one of a class which deserves record and encouragement. We are told that this part of Hampshire can certainly be called " Ghost Ridden." There is not a village nor a hamlet, and scarcely a house of any size which has not its ghost story of some sort or another." The ghost of a Rector of Vernham Dene, who let his wretched plague-stricken people starve, walks as a grief-stricken figure. On the place where the battle was fought at Deadman's Plaque no trees will grow. At Wherwell the villagers never eat ducks' eggs because