178
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. AUG. 29, iocs.
head. As to Hure, he will find all informa-
tion in Skeat's 'Concise Dictionary,' s.v.
1 Whore.'
Your correspondent has overlooked Ger. Aehre, ear of corn, which is plainly from irren and errare, because it wanders or sways about in the wind. H. P. L.
What must PROF. SKEAT'S feelings be when he is confronted by etymologies such as that offered at the last reference? Neither Hirn t nor Hure ( = whore), nor Ahn, nor irren (connected with errare and err) has anything to do with one another. Errant is not Frankish, but Romanic. Ehren = nobles or wandering conquerors is a ghost- word.
G. KRUEGER.
Berlin.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.
Romantic Tales from the Panjdb. By the Rev.
Charles Swynnerton, F.S.A. (Constable & Co.) NOT the first contribution of Mr. Swynnerton is this to the great and deeply interesting subject of Indian folk-lore. Eleven years ago he published 'Indian Nights' Entertainment,' a previous collec- tion of stories relating to the Upper Indus. This also had been preceded by ' The Adventures of the Panjab Hero, Raja Rasala. In his position of (Senior) Chaplain to the Indian Government he gathered during his stay in or near the fort of Attock from oral recitation the stories of the professional bards and of the more enlightened of the common people. The prose portion of these he has translated without " conscious embellishment," and he has rendered also into fairly idiomatic English much of the verss which in Oriental literature forms generally an important and a significant feature. In the case of the legend of Rasala, which is much the longest and most important, the separate stories are com- piled from various sources ; in 'other instances, even in the ' Love Story of Hir and Ranjha,' the place and time, as well as the author of the narration, are told. Though published later than the contents of the previous volume, the legends now given were harvested at the same time and under similar con- ditions. Like them, moreover, they are of hoar antiquity, being older than the Jatakas or the ' Mahabharata,' older than most existing records. Like them, once more, they are illustrated by native artists in a style the fidelity of which is an advan- tage as well as an attraction, since while depicting the life of many hundred years ago it shows that also of to-day. Once more we are struck with the resemblances to classic fable, to Bible story, and to mediaeval superstitions. The love story of Hir and Ranjha has marked resemblance to that of Hero and Leander, which the very sound of the names suggests ; and the story of Puran Bhagat resembles not less closely that of Phuedra and Hippolytus. Scarcely less marked is the affinity of a portion of the legends with what the author calls " the divine folk -tales of the Old Testament," and Ranjha, "piping down the valleys wild" and collecting the flocks by means of his minstrelsy, is virtually Orpheus beloved of the nymphs. As to the scientific value of the tales Mr. Swyn-
nerton leaves others to speak, and he puts forward
no theory as to their genesis, whether they are
" the survival of a stock once the exclusive property
of one original tribe," or, allowing for inevitable
modifications, "they sprang up independently m
various centres." Whether, indeed, they derive
from primitive solar myths or from traditional
fables of human adventure, it is certain that they
are linked at once with the records of the * Arabian
Nights' and with the simplest folk-tales in which
childhood yet takes delight. So interesting, mean-
while, are the illustrations that we cannot but
wonder that the talent of native artists is not more
frequently employed in the case of Oriental works.
Specially interesting is the design, p. 65, of Hir and
Ranjha borne away by Jins, which conveys a capital
idea of the method of flight which constitutes so
familiar a feature in the 'Arabian Nights. The
jackal is once more shown as the acutest of beasts,
answering to the fox of Occidental story. Mr. Swyn-
nerton's style is agreeable and good, though he
repeats with unpleasing frequency an inaccuracy
such as "by-and-by(e)" with the superfluous e, and
is betrayed occasionally, though not often, into the
heresy of the split infinitive. "From whence" is
also a locution into which he drops. His book is
an acceptable and valuable contribution to folk-
lore, and is equally fitted for the library and the
"bower."
Three Centuries of English Book-trade Bibliography.
By A. Growoll. Also a List of the Catalogues, <t*c. f
published for the English Book-trade from 1595-1902.
By Wilberforce Eames. (New York, the Dibdin
Ciub ; London, Sampson Low & Co.) IN a volume the comprehensive title of which is suggestive of the seventeenth or eighteenth century rather than the twentieth, Air. Growoll furnishes, with the assistance of the Librarian of the Lenox Library, New York, a notable addition to a species of bibliography in some respects of ancient and in others of modern growth. He has sought to connect his compilation with acknowledged authorities in bibliography by associating it, through a displayed list, with standard works such as Arber's 'Tran- scripts of the Stationers' Company's Registers'; Ames's 'Typographical Antiquities,' ed. Herbert and Dibdin ; Estienne's ' Francofordiense Em- porium ' ; Timperley's ' Dictionary of Printers and Printing'; and others. Personally, we are dis- posed to class it with works such as Renouard's 'Annalesde 1'lmprimerie des Aide,' the 'Catalog! Librorum' of the Elzevirs and the fine book of Willems on their publications, the ' Guide de 1' Amateur' of Cohen, the accounts of the pub- lications of the great Flemish and Netherland printers, the fine compilations of Brunet and Lowndes, and the ' English Catalogue of Books,' now, after various changes of title, issued under that name by Messrs. Sampson Low, Marston & Co. This, ' however, is a matter of taste, perhaps even of whim, and Mr. Growoll himself recognizes the affinity of his work to some of these, and dedicates it to Mr. Edward Marston, as "representative of the oldest -established system of English book-trade bibliography " and " Historian of the trade," as well as " a book-lover and a lover of his profession." A portrait of Sampson Low and one of Joseph Whitaker, highly prized representatives of the English book trade, are, with a likeness of Georg Wilier, 1591, " the father of book-trade bibliogra- phy," among the illustrations. Begun nearly nine
