Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/71

Rh prejudices, and credulities of a particular region. Yet these eighteen volumes hardly give an idea of their author's extraordinarily-minute and intimate knowledge of the Sicilian people : to fully realise it, one must have walked with him in the streets of Palermo, and have heard from his lips the legend of every stone, the history of every idiom, the significance of every gesture. This has been my privilege ; and I do not know that a Folk-Lorist could desire a greater.

NOTICES AND NEWS. Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Parts IV. and V. By W. A. Clouston. Publisht for the Chaucer Society, by N. Trübner and Co. London, 1887. The Tale of Beryn, with a Prologue of the Merry Adventure of the Pardoner with a Tapster at Canterbury. Re-edited from the Duke of Northumberland's unique MS., by F. J. Furnivall and W. G. Stone. With an English Abstract of the French original, and Asiatic Versions of the tale by W. A. Clouston. Publisht for the Chaucer Society, by N. Trübner and Co. London, 1887. It was a happy thought of the Director of the Chaucer Society to obtain the assistance of Mr. Clouston in completing his valuable Originals and Analogues ; and if any proof were needed by Folk-Lore students of Mr. Clouston's learning and untiring industry, it would be abundantly furnished by these publications. As in his previous works, here also, the wealth of examples which he has collected is chiefly found in facetious tales and apologues, such as were dear to the fabliasts from whom Chaucer and his imitators so largely drew, and to the translators and adaptors of the romance best known to us under the name of The Seven Wise Men of Rome. This side of the study of Folk-Tales has been hitherto comparatively neglected. The attention of students has been chiefly concentrated on Nursery and other Tales in which the marvellous is an essential element. Much, therefore, has