Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/217

Rh ment of large sections of Aryan belief, since Grimm, this study is really noteworthy. It is sober, cautious, methodic, and (where I can check it) trustworthy. I should not, as far as Scandinavian evidence goes, be disposed to question its conclusions. I think it possible to distinguish strata of Aryan mythology, and I hold that such a medley of beliefs as are found in late Scandinavian times, in the Odyssey, in Japan of to-day, points indubitably to a succession of foreign influences, most of which will probably some day be traced to their starting-place. It seems impossible for a man that believed he and his kin "died into a hill," or lived as a fleshclad ghost in a barrow, could also believe in the Walhall system of the Dirge of Eric Bloodax, and I am inclined to consider the Walhall belief as especially the development of the Wickingtide, not a creed for the steady tree-fellers and tillers of the pre-Wicking north. There is some evidence in Landnamabóc, of which Mr. Nutt will, no doubt, make use later, for it is not without its significance. The infiltration of Asiatic beliefs and practices into the north is attested by old Eric the Red's allusion to the "shaman," a title he maliciously applies to a Christian priest.

The difficulty of Mr. Nutt's task is immense. That he has been able to get so far and to clear the way so admirably is a matter of sincere congratulation. He has given folklorists a valuable lesson in the use to which they may put the rich material they already possess in print. He seems to me to have set forth his ideas with the clearness and brevity that, if he will pardon my criticism, were sometimes a little lacking in his study upon the Grail, and his present paper is easy reading, though it is hard thinking. It is the most valuable contribution to the history of religion and religious ideas that, as far as my knowledge goes, last year gave us. And of the importance, practical as well as intellectual, of such study no one in our Society can have the slightest doubt.