Miss Hull's volume contains much material of value for the study of folk-lore and popular tradition. The Middle Irish sagas illustrate a very interesting stage of popular narrative or epic development, and furnish many parallels to the motifs, characters, and manners and customs which recur in such literature all over the world. Thus an instance of the combat between father and son (as in the "Hildebrandslied") is discussed on p. xxxi of Miss Hull's Introduction; the precocious growth of a hero is illustrated at p. 145 of the text; some Irish accounts of a "brig o' dread" are mentioned on p. 291; the custom of drinking the blood of a dead kinsman or friend is referred to on p. 45 ; single combats frequently take place at fords (see particularly p. 149); the couvade is discussed in its relation to the Debility of the Ulstermen at p. 292. The editor's notes and appendices furnish very little that is new, and do not attempt a complete treatment of the subjects with which they deal. But they are sufficient for the explanation and illustration of the text.
As a whole, then, the volume is well adapted to the ends for which it was written. It ought to prove of use in popularizing Irish literature among English readers, and in publishing it Mr. Alfred Nutt once more earns the thanks of all friends of Celtic studies.
This curious story is given as an English translation from the Pottawattamie, in which it was written by the Indian author. Simon Pokagon died near Allegan, Mich., January 28, 1899, shortly before the publication of the volume. He was a son of Leopold Pokagon, whose name is connected with the early history of Chicago, having been born in 1830. In 1896 he finally obtained from the United States Government the balance due his people for the sale of the land on which Chicago stands, the claim having been finally allowed by the Supreme Court. In 1893, at the World's Fair, he made an address, of a character very honorable to the speaker, on Chicago Day. The whole life of Pokagon seems to have constituted a career as worthy as could be open to an Indian living on a reservation. His personal appearance is said to have been of a majestic character which would command attention in any company, and this account is borne out by the photograph prefixed to the present work, which represents a face most simple, honest, and winning. An aversion to strong drink, as the great curse of the Indian awaiting civilization, was inherited by Pokagon, his father Leopold having in 1832 lamented this vice as the cause of the backwardness of his people. The book now under consideration is a temperance tract under the veil of a romance. The interest taken in the composition by the surviving son of the writer, bearing the name of Pokagon, and the intrinsic character of the story, appears sufficient to establish its essential genuineness; but in the course of rendering into an English form, the tale
