Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/84

 76 those who wish to understand how little basis there is for the theory deriving our folk-tales from historic India.

In case the editor contemplates a further instalment of English Fairy Tales, he may be glad to be referred to one mentioned by Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witch-craft, Book XII, chap, xvi, where a crow teaches a maid how to carry water in a sieve. "And this tale", says Scot, "I heard among my grandam's maides"—from India, of course.

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This is a selection of about a hundred stories from J. F. Campbell, Scott, Robert Chambers, Henderson, and other printed sources, with a few from unpublished manuscripts, of which the most important is that of Assipattle and the Mester Stoorworm, contributed by Mr. W. Traill Dennison of West Brough, Sanday, in the Orkney Islands. Putting aside the scientific study of folk-lore. Sir George Douglas aims to speak in his Introduction of the stories "from the literary, critical, or story-teller's point of view". He professes not to undervalue the labours of the scientific student; but it is evident that his acquaintance with them is of a superficial character, otherwise the Introduction, interesting as it is, would have been rendered more interesting and trustworthy, and that, without impairing the keen sense of the beauty and wildncss of the products of the Scottish imagination which the editor seeks to infuse into the reader. He would have known, for instance, that several of the superstitions he puts down as peculiar to the Scottish peasant are, in fact, by no means confined to Scotland. In discoursing on the imagination of his fellow-countrymen he draws his illustrations almost entirely from the Low-landers, whence he appears, if we understand him rightly,