Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/391

Rh admitted that in these fragments from his workshop he does not do full justice to his subject nor to his position as our most distinguished folklorist. A book from him, however, is sure to be welcome; and just now, we must admit, it is sorely needed, for the comparative mythologists have had it all their own way so far as books are concerned.

We shall be anxious to learn what the school of Mr. Max Müller and Mr. George Cox will say to the searching criticism, the cogent reasoning and the accumulation of evidence, which Mr. Lang has produced in this volume. Many of our members are no doubt followers of the mythological school; but the writer of this article, not being so, must be allowed to say that nothing that has yet appeared in print so worthily champions as this book does, those who believe that folk-lore and mythology are two different and distinct studies. Mr. Lang does not, it is true, attempt any detailed exposition of folk-lore; he does not define it; he even hesitates to accept its classification as a science; but he gives us a complete study of several very important folk-tales which makes the book serve as an admirable stepping-stone to those who are inclined to go into further detail and into further fields of research.

Mr. Lang examines the myths of the Bull-Roarer; Cronus; Cupid, Psyche, and the Sun Frog; the three tasks, as it may perhaps be called; Apollo and the Mouse; Star Myths; Moly and Mandragora; the "Kalevala"; Hottentot Mythology; besides which there are studies on the Divining Rod, Fetichism and the Infinite, the Early History of the Family and the Art of Savages. Throughout these chapters Mr. Lang explains myth by obsolete customs. He says, for instance, that if the ancient Greeks told a story to account for a mouse being the symbol of Apollo, they told it at a time when they had passed the stage when the mouse was a totem fetish of a tribe. He says that certain customs, marriage customs and clan customs, have existed among all types of savage society in much the same general fashion—the result of nearly the same causes; and that these customs survive in recollection and tradition long after the tribe or people have passed the savage stage. If we were to suggest one chapter more telling than another it would be that on Cupid, Psyche, and the Sun Frog. Com-