Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/27

 us. xii. JULY 3, i9i.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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processions), is kept on 11 May; that of St. Pancras (who was honoured in England at Canterbury, London, Lewes, and else- where) on 12 May ; and that of St. Servatius, Bishop of Tongres, on 13 May.

It would seem that SS. Mamertus and Servatius have no Anglicized forms for their names ; and if this is so, it would be extremely improbable that there would be any reference to them " in English folk-lore."

On 13 May there is, or was, in some French dioceses, the commemoration of St. Chris- tantianus, a martyr of Ascoli, a diocesan see in the ecclesiastical province of Benevento, and a city in the secular province of Foggia. No date is given for his martyrdom ; but it is remarkable that his intercession was specially invoked against hailstorms.

JOHN B. WAINEWBIGHT.

Folk - Lore Notes. Vol. I. Guiarat. Compiled from Materials collected by the late A. M. T. Jackson, I.C.S., by R. E. Enthoven, C.I.E. (Mazgaon, Bombay, British India Press ; London, Broadway House, Carter Lane, E.G., 3s. Gd. net.)

WITH the exception of the late Sir James Camp- bell's comparative notes on the folk-lore of Western India, which are buried in the various numbers of The Indian Antiquary, the present volume breaks virgin soil, and Mr. Reginald PMward Enthoven, the Secretary to the Commerce and Industry Department of the Government of India, is to be congratulated upon having rescued these valuable notes from oblivion. The circumstances at- tending the murder of Mr. A. M. T. Jackson in Xasik in December, 1909, led to the raising of a subscription to be devoted to a memorial. After the purchase of his valuable library, which was procured for the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, it was decided to finance the publication of his collected notes on the folk-lore of the Bombay Presidency. These first appeared in The Indian Antiquary, and are now being pub- lished separately in two volumes : those dealing with the large district of Gujarat forming the volume now issued, whilst the remainder, dealing with Konkan or Concan, are being prepared by R. B. P. B. Joshi.

About the year 1000 Mr. -Jackson circu- lated to the schoolmasters of the Bombay Pre- sidency Mr. Crooke's list of folk-lore questions. This was done through the agency of the Educa- tion Department -surely an excellent way of obtaining information. The answers are arranged under ten main divisions, dealing with ' Nature Powers, ' Heroic Godlings,' ' Disease Deities,' Dead,' ' The Evil Eye,' ' Tree and Serpent Wor- ship,' ' Totemism and Fetishism,' ' Animal Wor- ship,' and ' Witchcraft ' ; whilst a further chapter dra Is with rites and ceremonies which do not fall Within the compass of the above divisions.
 * Ancestral Worship,' ' Worship of the Malevolent

The belief in miraculous powers remains common all over the East ; but Mr. Enthoven, tells us that " the old practices and beliefs are yearly tending to decay and vanish in contact with the spread of education." An unusually curious tradition relating to the occult powers of: a lake in Gujarat is recorded in the following para- graph :

" A bath in the Man-sarovar near Bahucharajii is said to cause the wishes of the bather to be fulfilled. There is a local tradition that a Rajput woman was turned into a male Rajput of the Solanki class by a bath in its water."

This is recorded by the schoolmaster of Kolki ;-. and a detailed story recorded by Jairam Vasaram, of Jodia, of the transformation of a king's daughter into a man, serves to confirm the acceptance ot the tradition.

The worship of totems is unknown, though' some family or clan names are derived from animals and plants. Tables are given illustrating this feature. The curative properties of various- stones are fully discussed, and many primitive- methods of securing successful pregnancy described. In fact, the volume contains a mine of information on common beliefs and traditions, on signs and ceremonies, and means of avoiding the ill effects of the evil eye, and of scaring away disease.. Though in no sense of the term " comparative," ifc. will prove an invaluable work of reference to the student of comparative folk-lore. Unfortunately,, there is no index, and we trust that this desidera- tum will be provided in the forthcoming volume dealing with the folk-lore of the Konkan district.

A Calendar of Suffolk Wills proved in the Preroga- tive Court of Canterbury, A.D. 1383-1604. Compiled by C. W. S. Randall Cloke. Edited by T. W. Oswald-Hicks. (Poole & Pemberton.) THIS admirably arranged Calendar should be known to all students of genealogy. Under an alphabet of Suffolk parishes it gives in chrono- logical order a list of all the wills belonging to each several parish, and falling within the above years, to be found in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. There follows a short alphabet of places belonging to two counties, and a chrono- logical list of Suffolk wills that do not mention parishes. An Index of Testators' Names is appended.

The compiler, in an Introductory Note, states that should the present work meet with acceptance and reimburse the publishers, he is prepared to complete a similar list from the years 1604 to 1800, and has some seventy years of this already in MS. We sincerely hope that genealogists will give Mr. Cloke the requisite encouragement to continue his valuable work.

The Berks, Bucks, and Oxon Archaeological Journal : April. (Reading, Slaughter & Son ; London, Elliot Stock, Is. 6rf.)

W T E congratulate our friend the Rev. P. H. Ditchfield on the coming-of-age of this journal. In his Preface he relates how, twenty-one years ago, he was invited by James Parker to a con- ference for the purpose of producing a journal to contain the transactions of the various societies connected with the three counties. Mr. Ditch- field modestly attributes its success to its various, contributors, and especially to Mr. Charles E. Keyser, who for several years "has generously