The author of the second book, on the contrary, has derived all his information exclusively from books. He deals with the cycle of the Salomo legends in the Semitic literature. In this first part of his book he is primarily concerned with the Infancy legends, if I may call them so, especially in the form in which they have been developed by the Arabs. Now, some of these Salomo legends are found also in the collection of Mr. Hanauer, and resemble in a remarkable degree the versions found in the written literature. If we go a step further and compare the whole series of Biblical legends found in ancient writings with the tales about the same persons in Mr. Hanauer's collection, the coincidence is striking. On the one hand we have tales and legends living among the unlearned, and on the other written tales which go back at least as far as Josephus, and are certainly much older than the writers of the first century.

How is this similarity to be explained? It is a complex problem, and not easily solved. There can be no doubt that the literary tradition is by thousands of years older than the oral surviving in the mouth of the inhabitants. But how has that tradition been perpetuated? The people of Palestine have changed their religion, and it is questionable whether among those living now on the soil of Palestine there is one left of the ancient indwellers of the land to continue that tradition. Most of the people are Muhammedans, and have come from further East, whilst the legends and tales which they have been telling to the modern collectors are local legends and tales connected with Biblical personages and Biblical lands. Still more surprising is the fact that these orally told tales are far more primitive than those found in the Arabic written literature. They resemble more the older forms met with in ancient Jewish writings. It would be rash to presume to give here an answer to this question, which repeats itself in every country with an ancient literary tradition, and where popular tales and legends, gathered from the mouth of the illiterate, show an unmistakable identity with, or close similarity to, the literary parallels; nay, even with the form which they had assumed, in many cases, centuries before the modern collector appeared in the field. India and

The quite modern legend of the wife of Señor Barela is an example of the superstitions still effective among the Tlaxcalans. The Otomi expectation of the return of Montezuma belongs to a type of belief to which we are accustomed in the Old World. But whereas that belief in Europe is now only represented by tales and sayings in which no one has any longer a real faith, among the Otomis it is the living inspiration of an extant worship. Marriage ceremonies, votive offerings, scrying, medical treatment, dances, are among the practices described. In short, the author gives abundant evidence that, while physical anthropology was the main object of his journeys, his eyes and ears were by no means closed to other branches of the science. But indeed his earlier works had already rendered this plain to all students.

Although, therefore, the book is primarily intended as a popular account, it is well worth the attention of students. The itinerary at the end indicates the author's routes. Maps have been given in previous publications; but a map here would have added to the value of the narrative. It is a pity, too, that there is no list of plates. E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

FOLKLORE OF THE HOLY LAND, MOSLEM, CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH. By J. E. HANAUER. Edited by Marmaduke Pickthall. London: Duckworth & Co. 1907.

EIN

DIE SALOMO SAGE IN DER SEMITISCHEN LITTERATUR. BEITRAG ZUR VERGLEICHENDEN SAGENKUNDE. Von Dr. GEORG SALZBERGER. Berlin: Max Harrwitz. 1907. THESE two books have been grouped here together because the connected consideration of their contents raises some interesting problems of Folklore. The first contains a collection of tales of saints, and miracles, anecdotes, legends, stories, proverbs, nursery tales and stories of animals and plants, collected from the mouth of the country people in the Holy Land, who are presumably all illiterate. The author has lived for many years among them, speaks their language, and is intimately acquainted with their

The author of the second book, on the contrary, has derived all his information exclusively from books. He deals with the cycle of the Salomo legends in the Semitic literature. In this first part of his book he is primarily concerned with the Infancy legends, if I may call them so, especially in the form in which they have been developed by the Arabs. Now, some of these Salomo legends are found also in the collection of Mr. Hanauer, and resemble in a remarkable degree the versions found in the written literature. If we go a step further and compare the whole series of Biblical legends found in ancient writings with the tales about the same persons in Mr. Hanauer's collection, the coincidence is striking. On the one hand we have tales and legends living among the unlearned, and on the other written tales which go back at least as far as Josephus, and are certainly much older than the writers of the first century.

How is this similarity to be explained? It is a complex problem, and not easily solved. There can be no doubt that the literary tradition is by thousands of years older than the oral surviving in the mouth of the inhabitants. But how has that tradition been perpetuated? The people of Palestine have changed their religion, and it is questionable whether among those living now on the soil of Palestine there is one left of the ancient indwellers of the land to continue that tradition. Most of the people are Muhammedans, and have come from further East, whilst the legends and tales which they have been telling to the modern collectors are local legends and tales connected with Biblical personages and Biblical lands. Still more surprising is the fact that these orally told tales are far more primitive than those found in the Arabic written literature. They resemble more the older forms met with in ancient Jewish writings. It would be rash to presume to give here an answer to this question, which repeats itself in every country with an ancient literary tradition, and where popular tales and legends, gathered from the mouth of the illiterate, show an unmistakable identity with, or close similarity to, the literary parallels; nay, even with the form which they had assumed, in many cases, centuries before the modern collector appeared in the field. India and

to be explained, especially where great political, ethnical, and religious convulsions had taken place, and one nation or one faith had been supplanted by another, and the ancient inhabitants had practically been wiped out? The easiest way of settling this problem would, of course, be to say that the oral tradition found still alive in the mouths of the people was more ancient than the literary representative, and that it had existed in exactly that form long before it had been committed to writing; furthermore, that the oral was in no way dependent on the written; on the contrary, the latter depended on the former. But this argument is not so satisfactory as it looks, in spite of its apparent simplicity. It does not explain the permanence of the legend or tale or custom, though the original population had disappeared, nor does it give a reason for the retention of primitive features in one case, and in another the latest forms of development. I cannot carry this problem now further. It suffices to have raised these question in connection with these volumes, which merit the careful examination of the folklorist.

The collection of Mr. Hanauer contains also a large number of anecdotes and stories, some fables of animals and birds which are current all over the East, and find their counterparts in the legends, fables, and tales of the Balkan Peninsula and among other nations in the near East. They were brought to Europe, no doubt, through the intermediary of the Turks, who borrowed them directly from the Muhammedan nations of the farther East. Here we have another problem hitherto not yet touched upon, in consequence of the dearth of material. How far have the Turks contributed to the dissemination of modern folklore in the south-east of Europe, and how far has that literature travelled north and west? Have the Christian nations adopted or learned anything from the Turks, and how far has popular poetry been enriched by the examples brought from the East? Before answering this query, with which we deal in the following note, a word may still be said on the second publication above mentioned. The Arabs had taken over many Biblical legends before they had adopted the teaching of Muhammed. direction in which Arabic imagination travelled can best be

From simple forms Arabic imagination evolved most fantastical shapes, exaggerating everything, and adding traits borrowed from their own Jinn-lore, and twisting the simple story into impossible phantasmagoria, far outdistancing the poetical but not grotesque imagery of the Arabian Nights. Dr. Salzberger has followed up the gradual transformation of the Salomo legends in Arabic literature, and has endeavoured to trace the sources of the manifold recensions and variations. It would now be instructive to take up the thread of his studies, and to compare these Arabic versions with their Western parallels in the Gesta and in the numerous medieval tales connected with Solomon, thereby establishing the fact as to whether these variants. are due to Arabic traditions, or are independent of them and borrowed from other Oriental sources. Only by a methodical examination of these versions, and by a careful study of the details found in one series of tales and missing in the corresponding series in other literatures and languages, will it be possible to trace the literary filiation of these legends, and to fix the routes by which each of them have travelled, eastwards or westwards.

SLAVISCHE VOLKSFORSCHUNGEN, ABHANDLUNGEN UEBER GLAUBEN, GEWOHNHEITSRECHT, SITTEN, Braeuche und die GuslarenLIEDER DER SUEDSLAVEN, VORWIEGEND AUF GRUND EIGENER ERHEBUNGEN. Von Dr. FRIEDRICH KRAUSS. Leipzig:

Wilhelm Heims. 1908.

THE well-known collector and student of South Slavonic popular literature, Dr. F. Krauss, publishes in a huge volume of 431 pages one of the most exhaustive and important collections of Folklore, gathered mostly from the Serbs in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and other adjacent provinces. The volume contains first a detailed description of popular beliefs, notably that peculiar belief in the Vampires and in the evil fairy the Vila and Mar, so widely spread all over the Balkan Peninsula. This Vila has very little in common with the lovely fairies of the West. She is in most cases an evil female spirit and the cause of most of the troubles