Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/82

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of Mr. Jacobs' and Mr. Batten's beautiful gifts to children! And a charming gift it is. But, writing, as a notice in must be written, "from the high and lofty standpoint of folk-lore" (so Mr. Jacobs phrases it), we can only deal with its scientific interest. This centres, of course, in the preface and the notes. And here, while there is much to interest the reader, there is much also from which a sound criticism must dissent. We may leave Mr. Andrew Lang to discuss with Mr. Jacobs the question whether Lowland Scotch tales are English. But we must decline to accept the editor's claim that Grimm and Asbjörnsen "did the same as" he, in re-writing at his own sweet will so many of the tales. Listen to his confession: "I have re-written most of them I have actually at times introduced or deleted whole incidents, have given another turn to a tale, while I have had no scruple in prosing a ballad or softening down over-abundant dialect." To which we may add, or in seasoning the whole with "Lawk-a-mercy! and archaic touches, which are known nowadays as vulgarisms." Where does Mr. Jacobs find his authority for saying that the brothers Grimm treated their tales to this wholesale doctoring? His true defence would be boldly to avow that the text he gives is not intended for students, and there leave the matter. The student could then demand only that the genuine text of any of the tales which had not appeared elsewhere should be preserved in some accessible form—say, in the pages of.

The notes concluding the volume are full of acute suggestions and lively writing. It may be assumed that the editor's learning has here brought together most of the material on which it is possible to assert an oriental origin for the tales—not, of course, in extenso, but by way of reference. What does it amount to? We light by pure