Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/77

Rh growth of civilisation. A collection of Proverbs concludes the book.

This work seems to me written in just the right way, and both reliable and interesting. Only it is a pity that numbers are not added to the tales, for convenience, as the names are very hard for foreigners to remember in referring to them.

takes a sound view of archæology, as he writes "Antiquarian research in Ireland may, with advantage, be directed towards filling in the social history of primitive man; articles which are the result of the handiwork of the aborigines illustrate, with much exactitude, life in the olden days If material objects be accepted as a proof of the pagan ideas and customs of the aborigines, surely the evidence of still existent superstitious observances of the peasantry, which can be traced to a pre-Christian source, ought to be received with, at least, the same authority It is to be hoped that research into the past, on these lines, may contribute to the re-construction of early history." At least a quarter of the book deals with subjects which are interesting to folklorists, as, for example, the conflict between paganism and Christianity, rites of purification by fire or by water, funeral customs, traces of the former occurrence of cannibalism. Of the pagan-christian overlap, he says "the early Christian missionaries, in essaying to wean the masses from long-established Paganism, did not attack time-honoured usages directly in front, but turned their flank; thus, instead of exterminating the enemy, they only routed and scattered them, here and there detached bodies remained, which still offered a resolute though in general passive resistance. For nearly fifteen hundred years there existed two forms of religion, side by side, the traditional creed believed in by the mass of the people, and the worship of those who held the Christian faith." In illustration of this position he cites the belief in witches or hags and in fairies, the worship of pillar stones,