10 DECEMBER 1927, Page 20

Some Books

of the Week MISS DOROTHY UNA. RADCLIFFE -presents the strong poetie prose-sketches -and the wistful—rather sombre—verse con- tained in Dale Folk (John Lane, illustrated, 10s. 6a.), with the remark that we need not go to the northern dales to meet her folk, but can 11nd them anywhere _we. will. That may be so, But we like - them best where the singer herself puts them. We like to meet the sturdy dalesmen where "banks and bairns are speedwell-eyed," we like to follow them over the fern-fringed sink-holes of the Butter Tubs across to Great Shunner Fell, or on Greenhow Hill where the old tramp philosophizes on workhouses, or in a drab factory town in Airedale where the old countrywoman sighs, " 'Fheer shouldn't be ony homes in all t' world wi'out a strip O' garden." How superstition still lingers among the dales appears in the story of Doctor Fell with his evil eye, and wholly beautiful is the simple. strong pathos of the sketch entitled " Marygold Swayne." But everything in this book is good : it brings near to us the " satiny grey" of the fells where the ring-ousel sings and the golden plover pipes-mournfully.