Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/63

 Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society. 55

��THE SEVENTH VOLUME OF THE MEMOIRS OF THE AMERICAN FOLK-LORE SOCIETY.

CURRENT SUPERSTITIONS, COLLECTED FROM THE ORAL TRADITION OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING FOLK IN AMERICA, BY FANNY D. BERGEN, PART II.

As the fourth volume of the Memoirs, was published the first part of the work which is now completed by the seventh volume. The matter included in this second part is that relating to animal and plant lore ; the gathering will be found at least as illuminative as that already accessible. In the notice of " Current Superstitions " contained in a previous number of this Journal (vol. ix., 1896, pp. 55-66), it has been observed that no collection made in Great Britain is in any way comparable in richness and instruction to that of Mrs. Bergen. The British notices form only chapters of more general works, not professing to completeness of record or scientific thoroughness of presentation. In the American publication, the wealth of the material is incomparably greater ; the items often explain each other, and the book will be found to throw a flood of light on the popular beliefs and usages of the English folk, to which in the main the matter belongs. From the nature of the case, no gathering made as a first essay, and by a person whose opportunities have been limited by inability to travel, can pretend to anything like perfection ; a great body of superstitions have doubtless been passed over, to be added by later investigators who may glean after the footsteps of our author ; yet, even so, the work will be found an invaluable record of folk-thought, and will be permanently valued as testimony of popular conditions at the end of the nineteenth cen- tury.

In the paper above noted, attention has been called to the cor- respondence of the beliefs and American usages recited by Mrs. Bergen with those of England. The same relation will be found to exist in the second part of her work. As already remarked, the English element has been the controlling one in American folk- thought. Mrs. Bergen has indeed added a certain number of items obtained from negro sources. The book, however, does not profess to enter on the extensive subject of negro superstition ; the exam- ples cited are given only as variants of common white superstitions, or only as shared also by the white people of the region.

The first volume of the collection not only formed a collection superior to any predecessor, but in some respects opened up new fields. Such, in the review mentioned, was shown to be the case

�� �