Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/312

304 Opium, Strike but Hear, The Adventures of two Thieves and their Sons, 2 parts, The Ghost Brahman, The Man who wished to be Perfect, A Ghostly Wife, The Story of a Brahmadaitya, The Story of a Hiramen, The Origin of Rubies, The match-making Jackal, The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead, The Ghost who was afraid of being bagged, The Field of Bones, The Bald Wife. It is a most welcome addition to our folk-tale literature, and a debt is due to Captain R. C. Temple, a member of our Society, for having suggested its compilation. We are not quite sure, however, whether the stories have not received too much literary help. Reading them through one perceives the evident polishing of the literary man, and when a note is affixed to one of the stories thus, "This story is not my own: it was recited to me by a story-teller of the other sex," we are tempted to ask what does Mr. Lai Behari Day mean by the stories being his own? Of course there is plenty of evidence in the parallel stories in other collections to show that this collection has really been got together from the people—an old Brahman told two stories, an old barber three, an old servant two, and a Bengali Christian woman the greater part, says Mr. Day in his preface. We cannot go through the story-list and pick out the variants or those that please the most, but our members will do well to possess themselves of this useful addition to their folk-lore libraries.

Mr. Lach-Szyrma has reprinted from the Transactions of the Penzance Natural History Society a paper on "Cornish Proverbs."

The last number of the Journal of Philology, vol. xii. No. 23, pp. 112-126, contains an article on "Indian Folk-lore Notes from the Pali Játakas " by C. H. Tawney.

Captain Temple's Punjab Legends have all been collected at first hand, and contain many stories on new subjects.

The following tabulations of folk-tales have been received: "The King's Power," "If Heaven will it," "Unpalatable Advice," "The Cock and the Goose," "The Fairy Hen," from Caballero's Bird of Truth and other Fairy Tales, by Mr. J. W. Crombie; and "La vecchia di l'ortu," "Lu Spunsalizui di 'na Reggina e' un latru," "Il mago Tartagua," from Pitré's Fiabe novelle e Racconti Popolari Siciliani, by Mr. E. Sidney Hartland.