Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/99

Rh still formidable, and were not subdued by Sultan Mahomet, who conquered the Crim Goths (p. 43). Melanchthon in 1558 mentions a district in Taurica called Gottia, and states that in his day the people still used their Germanic tongue. A "heathen tribe," on the Black Sea, speaking some Germanic dialect, is vouched for in 1766 (p. 52); this tribe worshipped a tree of immemorial antiquity (p. 59). In the pages following a good deal more is said of sacred trees and groves among the Circassians and other folk, which neither Islam nor Christianity has uprooted. We need not linger over the fortunes of these tribes, nor over the discussion of the scanty allusions to their language which fill the next section. A similar method is used in dealing with the regions about the Caspian Sea.

Nearly all the rest of the book is taken up with the Crim Goths and their language. Of this language there are some records of the sixteenth century, which show it to have been Germanic beyond a doubt. An elaborate discussion of its sound-changes is given on pp. 136-179. One section (210 ff.) is devoted to the history of the Crim Goths, another (227 fif.) to their bodily peculiarities, and a few pages (245 ff.) to their character and customs, which deal, however, with their way of eating and behaviour.

It will be seen that there is hardly anything in this book which bears on folklore, tradition, or religion. For the ethnologist it collects a mass of useful evidence, and for the linguist also it has its value; but for the student of folklore all it can do will be to give him a bibliography and a discussion of the worth of some of the evidence.

is more difficult than to write an introduction to any scientific subject And this is emphatically true of an introduction to the prehistoric archaeology of Britain, since it involves