Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/389

 376 THE CELTIC REVIEW The Ohms, Scpts, and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands. By FRANK ADAM, F.R.G.S., F.R.S.A. Scot. W. and A. K. Johnston. 505 pp. dy. 8vo. 15s. net. The aim of this book ‘ is the presenting in condensed form an epitome of information relating to Tartans, Highland Clan Matters, Scottish Regiments, and, as far as possible, Clan Septs.’ Of the fifteen chapters into which it is divided, four deal with history from 400 B.c. down to 1902 AMD., while chapters are also devoted to Highland music, the Celtic languages in the British Isles, and Armorial bearings. There are thirty-five appendices, and plates of one hundred and fourteen tartans. Mr. Adam’s difficult task was rendered still more difficult by residence in Selangor, and though the work contains much matter that will be read with interest, and which will be a useful starting—point for critical inquiry, it would be unsafe to found on it. The historical side, for instance, repeats many of the errors in Skene’s Scottish Highlanders, which Skene himself subsequently corrected. The origin of the clans is often imsatisfactorily dealt with, ag., the Mathesons are made Norse, and the Grants Celtic. Mr. Adam has also been following unsafe guides in philology. Altogether we are rather disappointed that the author has not been able to avail himself more of reliable modern research. In Appendix twenty-six giving the Celtic census of 1901, Glasgow, which Mr. Adam regards as the Highland capital, is returned at seventy-nine , persons speaking Gaelic only, and 16,930 speaking Gaelic and English, or not quite two and a half per cent. of the total population of 690,044. Yet Mr. Adam assures us on p. 338 that Glasgow contains over 250,000 Highlanders, or over thirty-six per cent. of the total population. But perhaps Mr. Adam’s notion of what constitutes a Highlander dilfers from Helen Macgregor’s. l

Sir Gwain and the Lady of Lys. Translated for the first time from Wanchier l de Denain’s section of the Conte del Graal. By Jessie L. Weston. i David Nutt. 2s. net. This is the seventh volume of the series of Arthurian Romances unrepre- l sented in Malory's Morto d’Arthxwr. It describes an expedition xmdertaken i by King Arthur and several of his knights against Castle Orguellous to i rescue a brother of the Round Table ; also certain adventnues (one of them l the outcome of the love-story of Sir Gawain and the Lady of Lys) which l befell them on the way thither. One may apply to the whole Miss Weston’s l own words regarding the second adventure: ‘an admirable story, pic- l turesque, vivid, and full of human interest’ Doubtless a good deal of the credit for this is due to the translator, whose diction has a delightful old- world atmosphere about it, without, however, the least trace of aifectation. Perhaps, too, the book gains something from the fact that it has been written for the general public rather than for a few Arthurian specialists, and that in the most interesting part an obviously later version of the tale has been preferred to an older but less pleasant one. The result is a piece of writing which makes one wish that the different versions of our own Gaelic tales, Dagmzeu by Google ,