Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/237

Rh delirious, and it was necessary that he should be watched. His brother the sawyer, a strong, hale man, of about forty years of age, undertook this duty; but, while attending to his brother, he also became impressed with the delusion that he was "overlooked," and that too by his own mother, who lived close by. The delusion gained such a hold upon him that his mind was unhinged, and he ultimately became so violent that it has been found necessary to remove him to the County Lunatic Asylum at Wells.—Bristol Mercury, 17th March.

This is the first part of what promises to be a very useful collection of local folk-lore. Collections arranged in districts like this must always be welcomed, and we cannot endorse the cry raised in some quarters that customs incidental to several counties or districts need not be repeated in every local collection. In dealing with folk-lore its geography as well as its variations are most important to note. If folk-lore is early custom and tradition survived from early times, it may in England be due to a Celtic or a Teutonic origin; and therefore to pick out the geographical limits of certain customs or traditions is a most interesting phase of folk-lore studies which has not yet been fully appreciated. Such books as Shropshire Folk-Lore will enable this to be done when the time comes for it. Miss Burne has taken up the Collections of Miss Jackson, whose Shropshire Word-Book was so much welcomed, and by the aid of her own local knowledge and her clear-sighted discrimination as to what was good and what was not, has succeeded in giving us an exceedingly good, if not a model,