Solution of the Gorgon Myth," read before the Folk-lore Society in 1902, he endeavoured at once to show that the myth of the Gorgon originated in the cuttle-fish of the Mediterranean, and to connect the Medusa-legend with the Evil Eye superstition. He joined the British Association at the Manchester meeting in 1887, and in 1893 became a member of the General Committee. In 1895 he read a paper on Horns of Honour and Dishonour and of Safety, and in 1896 two papers on Some Pagan Survivals, and on an Ancient British Interment on the top of Culbone Hill, Somersetshire, belonging to the early bronze age, not later than the second millennium B.C. He attended the meeting at Toronto in 1897, and read a paper on some old-world Harvest Customs in Egypt and Thessaly, and in various parts of the United Kingdom, discussing their significance as survivals of an animistic corn-cult. It was on this occasion that the present writer, on the voyage out and during the stay in Canada, had the good fortune to improve his previous slight acquaintance with Mr. Elworthy into an intimate friendship, and learned to look upon him as a man of many accomplishments, of varied learning, and of high and sensitive honour.

E. B.

REVIEWS.

Le Folk-Lore DE FRANCE, par PAUL SÉBILLOT. Tome iv. Le Peuple et l'Histoire. Paris: E. Guilmoto, 1907.

M. SÉBILLOT's great task is finished, and we have at last, in four octavo volumes, a fairly complete account of the folklore of France and French-speaking peoples. The interest of the collection has in no way diminished as it approached its term. On the contrary some of the chapters of the final volume are among the most enthralling. Such, for instance, are those relating to the observances connected with megalithic remains, building rites, churches, and the whole of the third book. dealing with the various orders of society and the historical traditions.

It is very difficult to select any of these for special mention, so admirably has the distinguished author arranged his material, so carefully and yet succinctly has he presented it. Nor has he been content merely to be a compiler. He has exercised upon it a well-trained critical faculty and has thus enhanced very considerably the value of his work. An excellent example of his critical treatment is afforded by the section on the legends of human sacrifices. We know from Cæsar (De Bell. Gall. vi. 16) that the Druids offered human sacrifices and even great holocausts; and it is natural to suppose that these bloody rites would strike the imagination of the people, and that their memory would be preserved with horror for generations after they had passed away. In fact, we do find in different

human sacrifices were offered. M. Sébillot, however, traces these traditions from their earliest mention, and comes to the conclusion that they are anything but genuine. So far as the evidence at present goes, they are all derived from antiquarian speculations, which, having started in the eighteenth century from a vague tradition of sacrifice (not mentioning human sacrifices), took specific form at the beginning of the nineteenth century as an assertion localizing not merely sacrifices but human sacrifices at these stones. Thence the tradition in various forms has been scattered over the country under the influence, as M. Sébillot conjectures, of tourists and savants, who, visiting them, have repeated in the hearing of the country-people the theories in favour on the subject during the former half of the last century.

The description of the old towns of France, until recent years but little changed by the march of events, with their ancient buildings, many of them identified with the scene of some strange or marvellous tale, and the veillées, when these tales and other chronicles of the place were told, will charm the student all the more because the author draws to some extent upon his personal reminiscences. The English reader will perhaps turn to the pages recording the traditions of which the English are the subject, and he will be amused to see how his countrymen and the wars they waged so long in France look through the eyes of the French "folk." One of the most interesting points made by M. Sébillot is that, while the memory of William the Conqueror is still living in Normandy, while an ancient object is said to be of the time of King Guillemot, and an ancient statue is that of Duke William, while the recollection of his birth remains, and of his violent acts-among them the tradition of his savage courtship-the expedition to England, so remarkable in its circumstances and almost miraculous in its good fortune, as well as momentous in its results, has left in the popular memory not a single trace. Henry IV., the Revolution, and Napoleon are of course remembered. But M. Sébillot has been unable to find any episode of the disastrous year of 1870 in a well-marked legendary form.

recent times still) for any folklore connected with the separation of Church and State a year or two ago and the taking of the famous inventories-such as the weeping or sweating of statues, apparitions of saints, and all the various prodigies which ordinarily accompany events in which the clergy are interested; but nothing of the sort could be found. Popular imagination on the subject is dulled: more than one influence has doubtless affected it.

The volume closes with a very full index to the entire work. I have not found everything that I have looked for in it; but I can testify from personal experience to the difficulty of making an efficient index to a book of folklore. Though not flawless, however, it will be of great value to any one who desires to consult a book which must be indispensable to the student. The volumes are a monument of learning and research, guided by the experience and judgement of one who has himself contributed in no small degree to the goodly collections of French folklore. Those collections will still need to be consulted as the authority for most of the facts here collated. Le Folk-Lore de France we must turn not merely as to a catalogue raisonné but also as containing M. Sébillot's ripe conclusions on many debatable questions, arrived at after thirty years of study given to the subject which owes so much to him. E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

To

THE JATAKA, OR STORIES OF THE BUDDHA'S FORMER BIRTHS, translated from the Pali by various hands, under the editorship of PROF. E. B. CowEll. Vol. VI. Translated by PROF. COWELL and DR. W. H. D. ROUSE. Cambridge: the University Press, 1907.

ALL students of folk-lore will congratulate Dr. Rouse and his colleagues on the completion of this undertaking, the translation of the great Corpus of Buddhist folk-tales, known as

the Jataka. The translation now finished is to be provided

with a final volume containing indexes, and, it may be hoped, an analysis of the tales and incidents. Now that the translation is in the hands of scholars, it remains for them to undertake the serious task of elucidating the immense store of materials provided for them. In some of the earlier volumes an attempt was made to supply parallels to the stories from the classical folk-lore of India and from modern collections. This it has been found impossible to provide in the later volumes, the notes to which are mainly philological. The true value of the Jataka will be to some extent obscured until it is brought into relation with the other collections of tales, such as the Panchatantra, Hitopadesa, Katha Koça, and Katha Sarit Sagara, with the epic, legal, and dramatic literature of India, and with the series of modern popular tales, of which large numbers have been collected and printed in recent years.

The present volume is perhaps not quite so interesting as some of its predecessors. It contains a vast amount of rather dreary didactic verse, through which Dr. Rouse has ploughed his way with admirable patience. At the same time there is naturally much of great value. Thus, in tale No. 539 we have a curious account of the Bodhisatta being chosen as king by a magic car which halts before him, and of the Swayamvara or selection of a bridegroom by a series of tests. In No. 543 there is a fine tale of the fascinations of a Naga sea-maiden, and No. 545 gives a second good Naga story. Snakes throughout play an important part, as in No. 540, where water drops from the bodies of the Kinnaras on a serpent, which in its wrath puffs out its breath and strikes them with blindness. No. 546 the Bodhisatta treads on the shadow of a hawk and causes it to drop a piece of meat; and in the same story there is a series of curious tests to try the devotion of a bride. In the same tale we have instances of gifted speaking birds; a curious account of an underground tunnel excavated to give access to a beleaguered city, and of the Battle of the Law, in which, when two kings meet, he that is induced to salute the other is hailed the victor.

In

The book, in its completed form, is the most important