Bugbears for frightening Children (ante, p. 197).—I know nothing of an "exhaustive collection"; but a short list of "Names of Terror" is to be found under that heading in Dr. Brewer's Reader's Handbook.
QUERIES.
Foundation Sacrifice.—How ancient is the custom of embedding contemporary coins in a foundation stone? Does Mr. Gomme scent any mild savour of a foundation sacrifice in this entombment in effigy of the reigning monarch? E. G.
Riding the Stang.—"What are the words of the doggerel rhyme, and of the speech, referred to ante, p. 298? Editor.
NOTICES AND NEWS.
Mr. Gomme's title hardly indicates the full value and interest of his new work. Briefly stated, his object is to recover for us the earliest organised social life of our forefathers, and his method is that of placing in juxtaposition the folk-beliefs and customs which still linger on in these islands with those of primitive antiquity as found in early history and in the mythologies, and with those of modern uncivilised races as found in the accounts of travellers. Step by step he traces the development of the village community from its first germ in the few rude huts, the dwellers in which held and did everything strictly in common. The only worship was that of the great natural objects, and its chief act, their propitiation by the sacrifice of one or more members of the community whenever a fresh dwelling was erected. Family life could hardly be said to exist at all. Towards it and towards an individualistic instead of a purely communistic society the foundation-sacrifice, strange as it may seem, was the first step. It originated a house-and-hearth cult which gradually superseded or transformed the older naturalistic worship, and which, by assigning to
