Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/109

Rh happens, the later manuscript embodies an earlier form of the story, free from the meretricious, and often incompatible, embellishments of the fourteenth-century version. Prof Wollner cites a tradition of the Kanderthal in the Bernese Oberland, the scene of which is laid in the neighbouring Simmenthal. It speaks of a race of giants who had giant cattle. Their cows were milked into a lake instead of a pail. To skim the cream, people sailed on the lake in an oak-trunk, and the butter was stored in hollow oak-trunks. In this tradition we appear to have reminiscences of the dug-out and similar rude vessels. The story belongs to the same order of thought as the Irish vision ; but traits like these throw back the connection, if there be one between the stories, to a very remote date. The Swiss plot, however, is so different that the one of them can hardly be derived from the other, and the root-idea of a land of boundless plenty is almost the only link between them. Signor Luciani's little book bears a very wide title ; but it consists simply of a collection of some two thousand and odd proverbs, phrases, and sayings. One of the appendices contains proverbs illustrated by the anecdotes and other stories from which they are derived, or to which they refer. It were to be wished that the author, or some one with his enthusiasm and experience, would bestow his attention upon the tales and songs of his province.