Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/295

 Reviews. 283

Danmarks Trylleformles, ved F. Ohrt. Copenhagen. 1921.

This is only the second part of an extensive collection of the magical formulae of Denmark. It comprises all sorts of spells, belonging chiefly to well-known types. The narrative spells, originally narrating and applying the adventures of heathen gods of the North, and now transferred to the sacred personages of Christianity, are, of course, numerous. But many others are included, some in the form of direct conjuration of a disease to be driven away, others being attempts to deceive the spirit of the disease, such as a spell against fevers, where the simple words " To-day I am not at home " are to be written on the door on the day when an intermittent fever is expected to return. Another resembles the English " Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, etc." By no means all are directed against disease or personal accident. Some profess to control domestic and other animals, or are directed against a thief, a ghost or an enemy. Many are love-charms or love-divinations. One of the latter runs thus : " Name me the girl who shall make my bed, who shall spread my cloth, who shall bake my bread, who shall bear my name, who shall be my bride with honour." This is in rhyme. The spell is very often clinched with the names of the persons of the Trinity. Most of the spells are in Danish, or in some dialect of it ; but a few are in Latin.

This extensive collection from all sorts of sources induces the obvious reflection how difficult it is to find any real novelty in this department of folk-lore : human desires and human fears are much the same all the world over, and superstition has essentially but one means of dealing with them.

E. Sidney Hartland.

Short Notices.

The Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, vol. vii. part i. March, 1 92 1.

The attention of anthropologists may be directed to an impor- tant article by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers on " The Origin of Hyper- gamy. " By hypergamy is meant that marriage is allowed