Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/261

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Revieivs. 239

has received, and will always be taken as a ground for future studies.

Even more detailed, and not less scientific, was the investigation which he undertook into the tangled and difficult subject of the Irish pagan and mediaeval theory regarding Elysium, with its cognate subjects of metempsychosis and re-birth, the results of which he gave to the world in his two volumes of The Voyage of Bran in 1895-97. This is Mr. Nutt's most elaborated contribu- tion to Celtic studies, and the one by which his name will always, probably, be best remembered, although his Ossianic work and his Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail 2c:q, to our mind, even more important as contributions to the history of Celtic origins. In this book he reviews all available Irish stories of the Unseen World, whether in the form of Voyage or of Vision, and concludes his investigations by a lengthy comparison with similar material and ideas derived from classical and oriental sources. His enquiry led him into the examination of many side issues, such as the origin of fairy beliefs, the influence of Christian dogma on pagan beliefs, the sacrificial "rite, and the worship of agricultural gods in Ireland. Whether or not we may always agree with the conclusions come to, we feel that the method is soimd and scientific, and that no data of importance is likely to have been overlooked. An independence of judgment and a careful array- ing of all possible facts are characteristics of Mr. Nutt's work.

His notes and appendix to Arnold's lectures, which so greatly enrich his edition of that work, were called forth partly by the necessary corrections required by the advance of our knowledge in Celtic subjects generally, partly by his own dissent from some of Arnold's conclusions and views, which he believed, in spite of the stimulating influence which the lectures have undoubtedly exercised, to have been productive of false and harmful results when too thoughtlessly adopted by younger writers. Un- doubtedly, Arnold's dicta have been watchwords for the young generation ; and, being often founded on too narrow or on erroneous data, they have misled the heedless. In many ways Arnold's ideal has not been fulfilled. He looked for a closer union and understanding between Teuton and Celt by means of a truer appreciation of each other's ideals, as expressed in their