WEST INDIAN FAIRY TALES.
West Indian Fairy Tales. By Gertrude Shaw. Illustrated by H. J. Stock, IL!. (Francis Griffiths. 2s. 6d. net.)—As there is no preface to this book, many questions which the reader will put to himself must remain unanswered. We should like to know how and where the stories were collected, and how nearly these versions follow old folk-tales, for that they were originally told by Indians and negroes seems evident from the primitive positiveness of the narratives. The names of the stories are attractive, "Little Black Tilde's Apron," "Uncle Jeremiah's Walking-Stick," and "The Ogre of Barra-Carra," for instance. Though a thread of horror and of the black arts runs through the book, and the grown- up reader, at any rate, will feel something of the impotent struggle of primitive man against the mysterious forces of tropical forests, these stories will not probably be more alarming to a child than are some of Grimm's fairy tales.
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