- n Journal of American Folk-Lore.
in regard to the antiquity of similar practices. She perceives that these games were not originally invented by children, but are only a survival maintained by children of practices once belonging to grown persons. She considers, undoubtedly with correctness, that her gathering is so far com- plete that a gleaning from English districts not represented would not be likely to be completely different ; so that we may now consider that we have .1 tolerably rich collection of this interesting kind of folk-lore. She distinguishes two great classes, — dramatic games, and those of skill and chance ; the latter, she remarks, have usually been regarded as the property of boys, the former as especially practised by girls (but this rule is not to be regarded as very ancient, or as universal). That these dramas, now childish, might once have been ceremonial and religious, she fully recog- nizes.
Altogether, the volumes make an excellent beginning of the great under- taking in which Mr. Gomme has engaged.
W. W. Newell.
The Pre- and ProtoHistoric Finns, both Eastern and Western, with the Magic Songs of the West Finns. By the Honorable John Abercromby. In two volumes (Grimm Library, No. 9). Lon- don : David Nutt. 1898. Vol. I. pp. xxiv, 363 ; Vol. II. pp. xiii, 400.
Of this elaborate work, the first volume is devoted to Finnish anthropo- logy, prehistoric and early civilization, and the beliefs of the West Finns; the second volume contains the magic songs of the Finns, with an appro- priate introduction, and a selection of magic formulae from neighboring races, Mordvin, Votiak, Lettish, Russian, and Swedish, given for the sake of comparison. The magic songs are at first distributed according to their varieties, as for defence, vengeance, deliverance from pain, or as they proceed by attempts to expel the evil influence, through reproach, boasting of the power of the operator, and the like ; then chapters are formed by "words of healing power," "formulae," "prayers," and "origins or births." The source of the material is the collection of Lonnrot, published in 1880, under the title of " Suomen Kansan muinaisia Loitsurunoja," or " Bygone Songs of the Finns." Lonnrot, in his difficult task, did not proceed with the strictest modern severity of method, his songs being obtained by the putting together of many imperfect versions ; according to the state- ment, it was impossible to induce any one singer to give in completeness the spell. Still, the abundance of the matter is such as to insure in gen- eral the accuracy of the tradition. The people from whom the songs were obtained lived chiefly in east and north Finland, and belonged to the orthodox church. Nevertheless, the ideas of the incantations are thor- oughly heathen in character. They do not themselves contain mythology, but refer to mythic persons, and in some cases imply the existence of mythic tales.
methods by which the exorciser undertakes to banish evil agencies
numerous. The reciter invokes the aid of stronger powers, deities,
animals, or inanimate objects; he simply directs the spirit of disease to act
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