Turkish Fairy - Tales and Folk - Tales. (Lawrence and Bullen.) — This volume, which
consists of Turkish fairy and folk tales, collected by Dr. Ignicz Kunos, and translated by Mr. R. Nisbet Bain in his usual competent fashion, is not only very readable and extremely handsome, but has a by no means inconsiderable ethnological and sociological value. When the bulk of the stories of which it is composed were first collected from the mouths of the Turkish peasantry in the course of Dr. Kunos's travels through Anatolia, and published in 1889 by the Hungarian Literary Society, "A Kisfaludy Tilrasgg," Professor Vambery compared them to "precious stones lying neglected in the by-paths of philology for want of gleaners to gather them in." Besides, it would appear that these tales or Nepmesek "provide the sort of entertainment which beguiles the leisure of the Turkish ladies while they sip their mocha and whiff their fragrant narghilies." The tales, which almost all begin in the good old fashioned with "Once upon a time in the old old days," are told in that delightfully magical "wave of the wand" style which used to delight children better than anything else of the kind. There is a delicious "thoroughness "-suggestive even of the Constantinople massacres -in such an ending as this :-" The Padishah was nigh to dying in the fullness of his joy. He could scarce believe his eyes, but he pressed his consort to his breast and embraced the two beauteous children and the Queen of the Penis likewise. He forgave the sisters of the Sultana their offences, but the old witch was mercilessly destroyed by lingering tortures Forty days and forty nights they feasted, and the blessing of Allah was up m them." The Roumanian tales, which are concerned almost exclusively with the adventures of a hero named Boy-Beautiful, are quite as beautiful as the Turkish stories ; the allegory in them, indeed, is almost as well sustained as it is in "The Pilgrim's Progress." The Christmas season has witnessed the production +at no book more distinctly original and enjoyable than this.
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