Preparations for the Congress are progressing very satisfactorily. A guarantee fund has been liberally subscribed, and Executive and Literary Committees have been elected out of the Organising Committee.
The Handbook of Folk-Lore has now been nearly all passed for press, and will certainly be in the hands of most of our readers before the end of the year.
The visit of the Queen of Roumania (“Carmen Sylva”) to this country has resulted in a scene of great interest to folk-lorists. On September 10th, the Queen, dressed in Roumanian peasant costume, exchanged folk-tales, legends, and ballads with a select number of Welsh bards.
M. Gaston Paris, in his review in the Journal des Savants of Count Nigra’s book on Piedmontese Folk-Songs (reviewed by Miss Busk supra, pp. 261-7), comes to the important conclusion that the majority of the lyrico-epic ballads common to the Romance-speaking countries are derived from N.W. France in the fifteenth or, at earliest, fourteenth century.
We must all learn Finnish. The University of Helsingfors, besides possessing the only Professor of Folk-lore in the world, has MS. collections of over 100,000 items of Finnish folk-lore, including 12,000 folk tales.
Communications for the next (December) number of Folk-Lore should reach the Office, 270, Strand, W.C. before November 1.
