'PORTUGAL:: - A BOOK OF s, • FOLK WAYS
Current Literature
By Rodney Gallop
In no .European country is the folk heritage sq little spoiled and soabundant as it is in Portugal, _and,years of rest; deuce in this gentle and charming land gentle
have . given Mr. Rodney Gallop the opportunity to - indulge an amateur's diligent passion-for the half-buried ways
of the . After a pleasant survey of the country he gets down to his main business, which is to give an account of traditional beliefs and cus- toms and a study " of folk music and literature. Verses, proverbs, songs and tales- abound but, as Mr. Gallop says, the traveller has to look for them and to be on .tie alert for clues. His own skill is. remarkable. Not many would have taken the hint of the rude piping he heard on the golf-coUrse at Estoril (of all places)) or would have got from the caddy-the explanation : " It is the boys_ calling Enlrudo". (a name for Carnival). They do it because they want winter to come to an end." At Evoraj on St. John's Eve, he had almast givenup after seeing only one pathetic . little .. bonfire and gypsies engaged. in the Charleston ; but, the folk things do not die so quickly; Shyly they retire, and by Waiting and persisting at Evora Mr.- Gallop saw the real stuff at last. The chapters on PortugueSi music are of especial interest —the absence of strong Moorish influ- ence in the songs 'is a curious Iherian anomaly. " He writes a spirited defence of the fade: Whatever else the fado may be, it :g an active, spontaneous and contemporary popular art. A charming informal and scholarly footnote to The Golden Bough, Mr. Gallop's bOok (CaMbridge University Press, 15s.), is in a class by itself. He is a traveller with 'a mission and it led him into fascinating bypaths.
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