Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/532

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5o8 Revieivs.

it, it was a white stone'. . . . Here we have a saga of the most simple kind. In the tone of plain history it tells a fantastic narrative: but we see the original experience gleam through it. In the marketplace of Remich lay a white stone; the peasants come o' nights out of the bars and they are all drunk; they see the white glimmer, and it seems to move to and fro, now it is more to the right, now more to the left, according as they stagger to left or to right in their sottery; then they join hands and want to catch the rabbit, and, whenever one grasps it, he has the thick white stone in his hand." I doubt if all sagen can be explained on this principle.

The sagen here are selected from all parts of the German- speaking districts; historical sagen are omitted (coming in another section of the series), and nearly all these " come from the nine- teenth or twentieth centuries," /.(?., I suppose, their scene is laid in those centuries. The style has sometimes been simplified, but the substance is left unchanged. A list of authorities is given at the end, and some notes on sources and parallels; but not all the sources are given. The stories are very short, perhaps a dozen lines each; too short to have much literary interest, and the book is not exactly a student's book either. But there is quite enough of each story for the student to use, if he has the authority given; or for the kind uncle to tell again to his nephews and nieces, if he has the literary skill.

^\■. H. I). Rouse.

Mysticism and Magic in Turkey. An Account of the Religious

Doctrines, Monastic Organization, and Ecstatic Powers of

Dervish Orders. By Lucy M. J. Garnett. Sir Isaac

Pitman eS: Sons, 191 2. 8vo, pp. ix-t-202. 111.

This book contains a sketch of the history of the dervish orders,

their present organization, and practices. It is written in a

popular style, without exact references for the most part; but

there is no reason to doubt its accuracy in the historical part, and

for the present day Miss Garnett has firsthand knowledge. A few

eccentricities in the writing of proper names might be corrected