NOTES AND NEWS.
Among forthcoming articles will be one by Hon. J. Abercromby, on the Marriage Customs of the Moravians; to be followed by others on the Marriage Customs of the Early Russians and in the Caucasus, by Prof. Kowalwsky; and the same among the Chinese, by Mr. Lockhart.
The Book of English Fairy Tales, by Mr. Joseph Jacobs, which is now almost ready, will have some folk-lore notes of interest, giving parallels to the tales, and discussing special points in them.
Mr. W. A. Clouston is preparing a third and supplementary volume of his “Popular Tales and Fictions”.
Mr. C. G. Leland has in the press a work on Gipsy Charms and Incantations.
Ar last Germany is to have a Folk-Lore Society, not-withstanding Professor Weinhold’s scathing remarks on the subject in the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie. Dr. Veckenstedt is interesting himself in the Society, which will publish a Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, quarterly. We give the new venture a friendly “Hoch!”
Mr. William George Black’s volume on “Folk-medicine: a Chapter in the History of Culture”, published by the Folk-Lore Society in 1883, has been translated into Spanish by Sn. Dn. Antonio Machado y Alvarez. (Madrid, El Progresso Editorial, 1889, 8vo., pp. xiii, 361). Both Mr. Black and the Folk-Lore Society may feel much complimented by Spanish appreciation of their work.
Preparations for the Congress are progressing very satisfactorily. A guarantee fund has been liberally subscribed, and Executive and Literary Committees have been elected out of the Organising Committee.
The Handbook of Folk-Lore has now been nearly all passed for press, and will certainly be in the hands of most of our readers before the end of the year.
The visit of the Queen of Roumania (“Carmen Sylva”) to this country has resulted in a scene of great interest to folk-lorists. On September 10th, the Queen, dressed in Roumanian peasant costume, exchanged folk-tales, legends, and ballads with a select number of Welsh bards.
M. Gaston Paris, in his review in the Journal des Savants of Count Nigra’s book on Piedmontese Folk-Songs (reviewed by Miss Busk supra, pp. 261-7), comes to the important conclusion that the majority of the lyrico-epic ballads common to the Romance-speaking countries are derived from N.W. France in the fifteenth or, at earliest, fourteenth century.
We must all learn Finnish. The University of Helsingfors, besides possessing the only Professor of Folk-lore in the world, has MS. collections of over 100,000 items of Finnish folk-lore, including 12,000 folk tales.
Communications for the next (December) number of Folk-Lore should reach the Office, 270, Strand, W.C. before November 1.