Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/201

Rh which he had laid down, and which was no longer in contact with his body, still remained subject to it. The same action seems attributable to Dafydd's fairy cakes. In another Chinese story mentioned by Dr. Dennys two friends who have lost their way in the T'ien T'ai mountains are entertained, during seven generations of men, in a fairy retreat by two beautiful girls and fed on hemp. Can it be that the notorious effects of this and similar drugs in producing dreams, wherein the relations of time are altogether confounded, may have had something to do with the origin of tales like these? Or, given the independent existence of the legend, has the dream-producing quality of hemp caused the introduction of the drug in this one instance? This hypothesis appears to me the more reasonable; but Gruppe, perhaps, might make something of the other.

SOME SPECIMENS OF AINO FOLK-LORE.

N interesting paper on the above subject was recently read before the Asiatic Society of Japan at Tōkyō. These specimens had been taken down as they were sung, chanted, or recited by the Aino bard or story-teller. In all, seven legends were given in the original Aino, accompanied by a literal translation and commentary. The first was the legend of a famine, which Mr. Batchelor seemed to think was kept alive simply to show how good a thing is wine. The second legend also bore upon the same subject of famine, and had a somewhat curious moral to the effect that, as the gods had, in extending food to the Aino race, shown that they had been pleased by offerings of wine and inao (whittled wood), why then should the form of religion be changed?