Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/432

394 is disappointing. For this is a work of which the paradox is true that the half would be greater than the whole. The subjects treated cover a very wide area: House-spirits, St. Cannat's Reed, Helpful and other Beasts, Dragons and Serpents, the Unbreakable Glass, Earth-spirits, St. Sumian of Brignoles, the Pious Immersion of the Fetish, Punishment of the Fetish, Libations, Passing through a Tree, Water-spirits, the May Pilgrimage at Toulon, the Dead Lovers, the Stone-heaps of Sainte-Baume, Air-spirits, Marriage and Progeniture, the Reward of Piety, the Punishment of Impiety, Stones and Rocks, Statues which move, speak, &c., Silent Exchanges (love-tokens and barter), Statues which make choice of their own Residence. Now, it is fairly obvious that adequately to treat the more important of these subjects would require many more pages than are given to them here. And the sequence of titles shows that the author passes from one subject to another as whim or accident may prompt him, without any definite plan.

This is not the way to write a really valuable book; and the unfortunate impression received from the tables of contents is still more unfortunately confirmed by reading the book itself. Dr. Bérenger-Féraud's method is to open every chapter with a short account of some story or custom of his native Provence, thence to extend his view over the rest of France, and ultimately of Europe ancient and modern. He then proceeds to enumerate, and sometimes to detail, similar beliefs and practices in other parts of the world; and finally he expounds what he conceives to be their origin. In many ways and for many subjects it would be impossible to better this method. The author's personal experiences in Provence and in Africa stand him in good stead; and he gives repeated evidences of very wide, if cursory, reading in folklore. So long as he derives his illustrations from Provence (or at most from France), from Algeria, and from Senegambia, they are possessed of real importance. His own personal knowledge and the pains he has taken to ascertain the details of Provençal rites are a guarantee of accuracy; and he generally gives chapter and verse for his citations from other writers. Beyond these geographical limits, however, and beyond a few of the writers of classical antiquity, he is liable to become vague both in his references and in his descriptions. The utmost that can be said of the portions of the book which deal with European