Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/133

Rh possibility of recovering from the Ossianic narratives any historical facts at all corresponding to the details of the legends, just as I disbelieve in the possibility of recovering the traits of the historical Arthur, if there ever were such a being, or the events of the Trojan war, if there ever were such an expedition. The names of Achilles, of Arthur, and of Fin-mac-Coul are purely mythic. They have gathered about themselves the floating traditions of the tribe or nation which held them in reverence, and all its glory has settled on their heads. All over the world may be observed this tendency of one great name to absorb the splendours with which the mythopœic faculty of a people having a consciousness of common origin or common interest fills the unrecorded past. It has created many a national epic; it has inspired many a national movement; it has formed a bond linking together many a scattered and down-trodden nationality and preserving it until the favourable moment of its regeneration. But it by no means follows that this great name has ever belonged to a live human hero, still less that the acts attributed to him were ever performed. Professor Zimmer builds something on the etymology of the words Fin or Fēne and Fiann. We who have seen these words wrested in another sense are hardly likely to attach much importance to derivations of so doubtful a character. The learned professor may be a professional philologist, in which case it would become us to make such remarks with bated breath; but until even professional philologists accustom themselves to make their guesses a little less positively than many of them still do, we can afford to bow politely at their assertions and wait for proof

Mr. Jacobs' Celtic Fairy Tales is a companion volume to the English Fairy Tales noticed in last year's Report, equally delightful to children of larger or smaller growth. Mr. Jacobs well says that he has again to rejoice in the co-operation of his artist-friend, Mr. J. D. Batten, whose illustrations are among the few that can be described as really