Handbooks of European National Dances. Edited by Violet Alford. Nos.
21-4. France III. The Pyrenees. By Violet Alford. Poland. By Helen. Wolska. Rumania. By Miron and Carola Grindea. Yugoslavia. By Ljubica and Danica Jankovic. (Parrish. 4s. 6d. each.) THE latest volumes to be added to this attractive and remarkably cheap series include some of the 'best: Four full-page coloured illustrations, a clearly drawn map, the music of whole dances quoted in full and a detailed, not too technical, description of the major varieties are all contained in an elegant and handy volume which will fit into the pocket—or the Christmas stocking of a small girl who dreams of becoming a ballerina. Each of the authors of the essays on Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia write in the present tense, as though the traditional dances and customs of these countries continued unchanged today ; but it is difficult to imagine the eXtraordinary ritual of the Calusari or the Polish wedding ceremonies surviving untruncated in the " People's Democracies." If, in fact, these dances are rapidly becoming obsolete, there is all the more reason for their nature and form being recorded now ; and when an introductory essay is as detailed and as well-informed as that which Miron Grindea contributes to the Rumanian Volume, it will interest even those who cannot follow the dances in their mind's eye. M. C.
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