on p. xxvii. as charriot, and there are many other misspellings, such as pawlonnia, goblings, murdured, place (for palace), Toaist (for Taoist), Tibethan (for Tibetans), customs (for costumes), Amithaba (for Amitabha), etc. Such sentences as the following should not have evaded correction,-(p. 16) "Mikoshi Niudo, bald headed, pulls its tongue and lolling it about, looks over screens"; (p. 240) "his would-be murderer, who achieved him with his kotsuka"; (p. 88) "The Japanese top differs from the European one, but is very similar to the Sabot of the French boys"; (p. 107) "the Norse myth of the white swan, or sometimes seal, which married a fisherman and gave him three children before leaving him, finally, in Siberian and South African folklore"; (p. 331) "unfortunately for the peasants living on his estate, he was of fastuous disposition." A more serious defect is that the scrappiness and inaccuracy natural to notebook jottings has not been remedied by careful revision and checking. Even in the bibliography, besides such slips as Anectodes Japonaises and Folk-lore Records, 1878-9 (instead of FolkLore Record, 1878), such errors occur as "Brinkley, Capt. China and Japan...Io vols.", instead of Japan and China, 12 vols. Citations, too, are not carefully made. For example, the tale of the monkey and the lizard cited from Landon's Lhasa ends thus on p. 237: "The lizard . . . was roundly reviled by the monkey, and flew away . . . but the story does not say whether he went home." If we turn to Landon's original story, we read: "So the Monkey knew that the Lizard was laying a trap for him, and he ran away jeering at the silly Lizard. So the Lizard returned to Mrs. Lizard in the lake"! Other citations appear to be equally impressionist in style; Saruta Hiko no Mikoto, a Shinto deity, is said to have a nasal appendage 7 cubits long, but the original Nihongi gives it as 7 hands long. In fact the whole book appears to require a thorough revision. The dictionary headings are often out of alphabetical order, and in a long list of cases do not correspond with the names given under the illustrations. would be a great improvement if the illustrations were numbered, and referred to by numbers in the articles. It is never certain at present that an article is not illustrated somewhere; Hattara It Sonja on p. 109 is illustrated opposite p. 278. Moreover, it is not certain whether every illustration is explained in the text; sometimes its subject does not appear in the dictionary,-e.g. Niunria Kosonsho, Kakudaitsu, Monju Bosatsu (Manjusri), etc.; or is dealt with under a different name,-e.g. Rokusonno in the plate opposite p. 374 is dealt with under Tsunemoto in the text, and the explanation of two illustrations of a deer and maple in the plate opposite p. 226 must be looked for under the Japanese name for the maple, momiji, on p. 233. In the article on the rakans or arhats, a list of 16 is given, and the reader is referred to the names of the separate worthies for their attributes; only 4 of the 16 names, however, appear in the dictionary. In short, all the references need checking, and in many places different bits of notebook information need to be harmonised. The above discrepancies are only a few of a long list noted in reading, which it would be wearisome to set out in full. Were not the book one necessary to the student, it would not have been worth while pointing out its numerous small errors. A new edition, cleared of the present disfiguring blemishes, would indeed be a joy and a worthy result of the labour expended. A. R. WRIGHT. Γαμήλια Σύμβολα. ὑπὸ Ν. Γ. Πολίτου. Athens : IT is quite safe to recommend any book by Polites, who was one of the first Greek scholars, as he is one of the ablest, to direct attention to the survivals of ancient life in modern. This pamphlet discusses the marriage rites and symbols in the Christian church: the betrothal ring, the crowns, the loving cup, the circling dance, with suggestions as to their origin. A number of notes describe local peculiarities of custom. W. H. D. R. Περὶ τοῦ Ἐθνικοῦ Ἔπους τῶν νεωτέρων Ἑλλήνων. ὑπὸ Ν. Γ. Πολίτου. Athens Sakellarios, 1906. THIS speech, delivered in the National University on 14 Jan., 1907, has by some miracle not explained been published in 1906. The learned author sketches the impulse towards epic poetry in Europe in the 12th century, with special reference to the Greek epic of Digenis Akritas. After some critical remarks on the various known recensions, he discusses the date, apparently that of the first struggles with Islam. Large numbers of episodes from this epic are still recited, and only a part have been recorded in writing or in print. It may be worth while adding that Mr. Dawkins, Director of the British School at Athens, is engaged in collecting the disiecta membra. W. H. D. R. Books for Review should be addressed to c/o DAVID NUTT, 57-59 LONG ACRE, LONDON, W.C. Folk-Lore. TRANSACTIONS OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY. (Read at Meeting, 15th April, 1908.) On the second Friday in August the annual fair is held at South Queensferry, a small burgh of great antiquity, just below the Forth Bridge. The fair takes place in a field within a convenient distance (the burgh has now no common land of its own) and consists of the usual shows and merry-go-rounds with the recent addition of pipeplaying and reel-dancing. On the day before the fair, a house-to-house visitation is made by the Burry-man, a character who has existed from time immemorial. The ceremony is now left to the boys of the place, who make their rounds to collect money to be spent at the fair next day. The Burry-man is a boy dressed in a tight-fitting suit of white flannel covered entirely with burrs stuck on. The covering goes over his whole body and partly over his face, so as to form a more or less efficient disguise. He is also adorned with flowers and ribbons, wears a head-dress of flowers, and carries in each hand a staff decorated with flowers and leaves. He is accompanied by two other boys in ordinary dress, who stand one on each side of him, supporting his outstretched arms and apparently guiding his movements. An interested group of children follow at a respectful distance, but only the Burry-man and his attendants come to the house. The asking is done by the attendants, the Burry-man maintaining a dignified silence. None of the attendants are decorated. I was informed that sometimes two Burry-men were led about and called the King and Queen, but this seems to be regarded as an unimportant variation. In the photographs (1908) (Plates VIII. and IX.), the head-dress is a good deal larger and heavier than my recollection of it two years before, so that it covers more of the face. As I learn by the courtesy of the Town-Clerk of South Queensferry, there are no documents or records bearing on the subject, but a description of the custom is given in the following quotations: Fyfe, Summer Life on Land and Water, p. 48, "A strange custom perpetuated to the present day among the youth of Queensferry, has been supposed to commemorate at once the passage of the King and Queen to and from Edinburgh and Dunfermline, and to indicate the civic origin of the place. We refer to the annual procession of the Burry-man, got up on the day preceding the Annual Fair amongst the boys of Queensferry, and traced back for time immemorial to the 1 Mention is also made of the custom in Sinclair's Statistical Account |