Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/65

Rh Mr. Dahle's longest variant of the story occupies forty-six pages of type, and includes a great number of incidents not contained in either of the foregoing, and a good deal more of the marvellous. In this variant a locust comes out of the fire, settles on the head of Ibonia's mother, sinks into her body, and so becomes the origin of the wonderful child. A long conversation is held between the child and its mother before its birth as to where he should be brought forth, a great number of places being proposed, but successively rejected for various reasons, until at length he is born while his mother sits in a golden chair of immense size. Wonderful portents accompany his birth; for he announces that he is "God upon earth," and that a thousand canoes could not bear him over the water, &c. All living things are broken, the rocks and the heavens resound, the earth turns upside down; and this, they say, was the origin of earthquakes. But it would be tedious to go more into detail. It must suffice to say that in this tale in its varying forms the native imagination has run riot in its love of the marvellous, and strange distortions of certain grand truths appear here and there in its wordy minuteness of detail. It is to be hoped that a complete version and translation of this exuberant product of Malagasy fancy will some day be published with full illustrative notes, so that English readers may judge of the merits of this Ramayana of Madagascar, describing the extraordinary adventures of its hero, Andrianàrisàinabonìamàsoboniamanòro.

Some Games played by modern Greeks.—(Reprinted from the Athenæum, Dec. 29, 1883.) Whilst travelling in the Greek islands I came across several curious games played by the boys on level spaces outside the villages. Samos was especially conspicuous for the vigour of its young athletes, for the Samiotes are by nature a wild, independent race, making terrible brigands, when from home the dread of the Asiatic coast. So effectual has been their resistance to the Turks that they have gained for themselves a prince of their own, and only pay a small tribute to the Porte. When Crete revolts