Short Notices.
Formelhafte Schlüsse im Volks-Märchen. By Robert Petsch. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1901.
The author of this little book has undertaken to consider the closing formulas of the Märchen, as a step towards a complete philosophy of folktales.
He distinguishes two main divisions, the internal and external endings, which he subdivides into two and three classes respectively: (1) the simple close, in which the good are rewarded and the bad punished; (2) the "happy-ever-after" close, which tells us something of the future life of the characters; (3) the recapitulating close, which summarises the main contents and often includes a moral; (4) the formal close, announcing in set terms the close of the story; (5) the personal close, in which the narrator removes the centre of interest to himself. The author's material is drawn from the nations, civilised and savage, of the Old World, and of them mainly from the Teutonic peoples; the preface gives a list of the works, about a hundred in number, which he has consulted.
Dr. Petsch truly remarks that the literature of folktales is too extensive for the single inquirer to cover, but he has given us an examination neither of folktales in general nor of a single national type in particular. His collection or division of the human race does not cover any single known area of the world's surface. Conclusions must either be drawn from the whole mass of Märchen, or the field must be examined bit by bit, and the author should have drawn his limits in such a way as to make the inquiry within them more or less exhaustive. As it is, we have an interesting study of a point hitherto little noticed, but not much addition to our knowledge as the result of it.—N. W. Thomas.
Sagen mis dem alten Irland, übersetzt von R. Thurneysen. 8vo xii. 152 pp. Berlin: Wiegandt und Grieben.
This volume contains the following stories: Macdatho's Pig; The Fate of the Sons of Uisnech (the L. L. text); The Weakness of the Ulstermen; Bricriu's Feast; The Birth Stories of Cuchulainn and of Conchobor; the Death Stories of Mess-Gegra and of Conchobor; Connla; The Wooing of Etain; Cuchulainn's Sickbed; How Ronan slew his Son; The Wooing of Findabair by Fraech;
