Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/100

92 number of the Revue Celtique, mentions this etymology with approval, and supports it by considerations of a mythological nature. A non-Irish scholar may be excused for following O'Curry and Mr. Fitzgerald.

This is certainly the most valuable book of folk-tales which has yet appeared. It consists of the best specimens from an extensive collection, taken down, all of them, from the lips of the various narrators, who are well known to the collectors. This is the first step of importance. The next important feature is, that the narrators are known not to have had any school or other education by which their minds may have become influenced by English ideas; and in this respect the stories are of purer origin than those in Miss Frere's Old Deccan Days and Miss Stokes's Indian Fairy Tales. As to the stories themselves, they are put into a remarkably good literary dress, though, we are assured, without any attempt to alter or vary the native original. Some of them have been printed in a word-for-word translation in the Indian Antiquary, besides which, in the notes, many illustrations are given of the original text, and the peculiarities of the translation are pointed out when it differs much from the original, or requires explanation. Every safeguard is therefore given to scholars. The effect of this is, that for purely nursery purposes the stories are really admirable. There is a naïveté about them which is exceedingly charming, and the humour of them, whether the work of the native or translator, is considerable. All the portions which are in verse in the original are translated into verse, and this important fact will not be overlooked by students, who know full well the significant part played