"Gleanings of many scores of evenings spent in a circle
after dark "—that is how Captain R. S. Rattmy describes his collection of Akan-Ashanti Folk Tales (Clarendon Press, 21s.). They have been garnered from their original sources and are published, without bowdlerization, as they were heard, both in the original and in translation. That is the only method that can give scientific value to the folk-tales of primitive peoples. An interesting preface describes the author's methods and gives the background of the tales. It is explained that they may only be told after dark, and that the telling is a period of license, which excuses improprieties and permits ridicule even of what is sacred and affords scope to the lampoonist. We are only doubtful about the illustrations, which are by natives who appear to have had some artistic training along European lines. The idea is commendable, but the results are not in great harniony with the tales, and there is something alien about the drawings which almost merits the strictures which the author makes on the type of folk-tale collector who has his stories written down in English by mission-trained Africans. This is the only criticism which this admirable volume invites.
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