The Ascent of Olympus. By Bendel Harris. (Manchester University Press.
5s. net.)—These learned lectures on the origins of the cults of Dionysos, Apollo, Artemis, and Aphrodite are full of curious information. Dr. Harris traces Dionysos to the ivy on the oak, Apollo to the mistletoe on the apple-tree, Artemis to the garden of simples, and Aphrodite to the mandrake. Whether his theory is right or wrong, his handling of the evidence is most in- genious. In one note he discusses the medicinal use of mice in ancient Egypt and in modern Lancashire, in connexion with Homer's Apollo Smintheus—the mouse-Apollo. Elsewhere he recalls the old folk-tale of Jesus asking broad from an old woman who was baking, and, on her refusal, turning her into a woodpecker or owl, and shows how it explains Ophelia's remark that " the owl was a baker's daughter."
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