West Irish Folk-Tales mid Romance. Collected and translated by William
Larminie. (Elliot Stock. 3s. 6d. net.)—This is a collection of stories taken down by a student of folk-lore word for word at the dictation of peasant narrators in the West of Ireland. Of these narrators there are half a dozen, one a lad in his teens, one (and the best of them) a man over eighty, living in perhaps the wildest spot of Ireland, Glen Columbkille. The main interest of the tales, as is made abundantly plain by Mr. Larminie's intro- duction, is for students of comparative folk-lore, which is a branch of ethnology. We have not the knowledge necessary to follow Mr. Larminie in his argument that the varying deposit, so to say, of folk-tales in different places argues still surviving racial differences; but we have read the book with interest. It is strange to think that all this legend-lore of giants, enchanted swords, charmed boats, and waters that can bring the dead to life should still be the favourite food of popular imagination among natives of this Kingdom; and though we cannot trace any literary merit, nor any germ of a true art in the tales as tales, here and there among them are flashes of literature ; for instance, in the answer of Londu to his rival Kaytuch when a woman had to choose between them, and chose Kaytuch. Kaytuch had pro- mised to Londu a blow without defence in their first battle, and Londu now claimed it. Kaytuch said, in his opinion, this was no battle. "No battle at all is there greater than a fight about a woman," answered Londu, And here is a fine phrase :—" So he and she spent the night together,—a third in talking, a third in storytelling, and a third in soft rest and deep slumber, till the whiteness of the day came upon the morrow."
Previous page
