Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/299

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Reviews. 263

into the water, carrying the evil with it. The cure is completed by the patient bathing.

A small collection of folk-tales, among which is a good case of animal metamorphosis, concludes this excellent account of a remarkable tribe.

W. Crooke.

Short Notices.

The Races of Man and their Distribution. By A. C. Haddon. Milner & Co., 1909. Large crown 8vo, pp. 126.

Dr. Haddon has accomplished with a large measure of success the difficult task of compressing within a small handbook the main principles of Anthropology. He describes the physical characteristics on the basis of which attempts have been made to classify the human race, and he gives a succinct account of the various peoples of the world. The matter is, of course, very closely compressed ; but the author has used the latest authori- ties. So far as it goes it may be safely recommended as a useful summary of a wide subject, and a valuable introduction to more comprehensive treatises on Anthropology. W. Crooke.

A Worcestershire Parish in the Olden Time. Reprinted from the Worcester Herald. Worcester, 1910. Pp. 41+ii. This sixpenny pamphlet on the recently transcribed accounts of St. Andrew's Parish from 1587 to 1631 indicates the useful results which could be obtained, by a systematic investigation of such accounts, both for future volumes of County Folklore and for study of the origin and continuity of customary folklore. Such annual events as the beating of the bounds, the communion on Low Sunday, and the bell-ringing instituted after the Gunpowder Plot, are all reflected in the accounts, and the revival of old practices after the Reformation appears in the payment in 1621 of \s. "for singing the carrall on Christmas Day," and in 1629 of 2s. 2d. "for Hollie, Ivy, Rosemary, and Bayes against Christmas."