Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/241

 Rh The first volume (of 460 pages) is entirely occupied with stories of Bergfolk, arranged in such a fashion as to illustrate the whole life and domestic arrangements of these diminutive earth-dwellers. In each of the subordinate sections there is naturally much repetition, but it is interesting to note how often the different versions supplement each other, how an apparently meaningless incident in one is cleared up by fuller detail in another. Tedious as the process may sometimes be, it is on the whole more satisfactory to make one's own comparisons; and this is what Kristensen gives his readers the opportunity of doing.

The other volumns are arranged as far as possible in a similar fashion. Vol. ii. contains stories of Elves and Brownies, Monsters, Lindorms, Werewolves, and Death-warnings. Vol. iii. is occupied with Giants, Churches, Legends of Places, and Buried Treasures. The Legends of Persons which make up the fourth volume are of course very local in character, but contain many incidents which have a general folklore interest. To a still greater extent they are of value as illustrations of old customs and ways of living. In this connection I may here notice another work of Kristensen's, namely, "Old Folk's Stories of Peasant Life in Jutland," which is of distinct' economic value even at the present day, and will be still more so in time to come. The nature of this work will be best understood from the titles of its various sections, 1. Farming in Old Times; 2. From the Days of Socage; 3. House-Life; 4. Social Meetings and Feast-Days; 5. Life out of Doors; 6. Our Fathers' Ways of Thinking and Mental Life.

How full of interest some of these old memories are, may be illustrated by a single instance. Not a few persons still living can remember occasions when the use of need-fire was resorted to for the cure of a cattle plague. The regular proceeding was that all the fires in the village were first put out. New fire was then obtained by friction, the villagers taking turns to work the necessary apparatus until