Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/71

Rh numerous superstitions connected with our familiar animals were illustrated by popular sayings from various parts of the world. The Folk-Lore Society was highly commended for the valuable assistance it renders to those interested in researches regarding the mode of life and thought of our ancestors.

During his survey of Eastern Palestine, Captain Conder is said to have collected a great quantity of Arab Folk-Lore, with tribe-marks and other ethnological evidence of value.

Mr. S. L. Lee is editing for the Early English Text Society the English version of the French Romance of Huon of Bordeaux, which was written by Lord Berners, the well-known translator of Froissart, early in the sixteenth century. Only one copy of the first edition is known to be extant, and it is now in the possession of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, by whose permission the present reprint is being made. The book will be of interest to students of folk-lore, as being the first to introduce Oberon, King of the Fairies, into English literature. His ancestry and the circumstances of his birth are there minutely described. In person he is represented as "of heyght .iii. fote, and crokyd shulderyd, but yet he hathe an aungelyke vysage." His dress gleams with precious stones and round his neck hangs a marvel-working horn. There is no limit to his powers of enchantment, and he has the reputation of working deadly evil on all men who speak with him, although other passages show him to be a zealous Christian. Huon, the hero of the romance, he takes under his especial protection, and brings him safe through all his hair-breadth adventures. His habitation is a wood, named Maumur, on the road between Babylon and Palestine; and, according to the old story, he finally sets out for Paradise, where a place was appointed him at his birth, and bequeaths his kingdom on earth to Huon of Bordeaux. Mr. Lee intends in his introduction to consider the various theories that have been suggested by continental writers as to the origin of Oberon, and to trace briefly his career in English literature. The former part of the subject has never been fully investigated. Keightley, who attempted it in his Fairy Mythology, preceded by many years the most thorough workers in the field, and has been long outpaced. Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps has well