Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/636

326 necessary to postpone the publication. This is in many ways an advantage, because much of the material was collected before the days of School Boards, which have exercised a destructive effect on local tradition. We have here one of the best collections of the kind, worthy in many ways to rank with Miss Burne’s edition of Miss Jackson’s Shropshire Folk-Lore and Henderson’s Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders. As in all books of the kind, the county is not a water-tight compartment, and much which the writer records is found in other parts of the country. In this respect the notes indicating parallels are useful, and might have been with advantage extended. Besides William Barnes, Dorsetshire possesses a great writer, Mr. Thomas Hardy, who has freely used popular beliefs and traditions in his novels. To readers of these the book will be very welcome. Judge Udal introduces us to a state of society rapidly disappearing, when he tells us of the rites of the Abbotsbury fishermen and the rules of the quarrymen of Purbeck. He gives an interesting account, based on personal enquiries, of the famous Bettiscombe Skull, which since it was first described has somehow acquired the reputation of “screaming,” an interesting example of a modern development of a legend. Among the many points of interest it is possible to refer only to a few: the valuable account of the customs connected with Sheep-shearing; Harvest Home and Crying the Knack; Mumming and Mumming Plays; Marrying the Land at Portland; the Bezant at Shaftesbury; the Giant Figure at Cerne Abbas; the place in the same village where a man drowned himself and the grass will not grow on the spot marked by his feet; the Spectral Coach at Kingston Russell House, near Bridport, and at Wool; the Black Dog of Lyme Regis; Skimmington or Skimmity Riding. Other chapters on Witchcraft and Charms, Superstitions relating to Natural History; Weather-Lore, Ballads and Songs, Children’s Games and Rhymes, contain much curious information. Our only regret is that as the book is published in a limited edition, it may not be generally available for the use of folk-lore students. 2em