of folk-lorists. The careful studies appearing in Modern Philology from time to time especially are worthy of notice by all folk students in these countries. The March number (1919) contains a study of the relations between the English Sir Perceval and Chrétien's Conte du Graal, by Professor Arthur C. L. Brown. He disputes the assumption that Sir Perceval is "merely a retelling by a clever Englishman of Chrétien's famous romance," and endeavours to demonstrate by a close study of the incidents and comparison with Wolfram von Eschenbach that it has an independent origin. He seems to us to have made out his case. The general tendency of modern investigations goes to show that the existing romances are deeply rooted in primitive folk-belief, and that the Märchen precedes the epic.
A useful hint is given by Professor Brown in a note on p. 126, where he remarks that when a romance grows out of a fairy-tale, then the older form of the story will be more logical, for it will conform to fairy logic. He instances the use by Shakespeare in King Lear of a theme which is perfectly coherent in its original form as a folk-tale, where people act as fairy-folk do, according to fixed laws; but when transformed into real people in the play, "the king's action is left poorly motivated." This provides a rational explanation of the sense of impatience we are inclined to feel in reading Lear at the apparent folly of the action of the king, while nevertheless we feel that he is intended to impress us as great and good.
In April of the same year there appeared in the same organ a useful paper by Professor T. Peete Cross on the Gaelic Ballad of the Mantle. He brings together a series of instances from mediaeval narrative dealing with a chastity-testing mantle, capable of detecting feminine fraility. In this study he contests the theory of Otto Warnatsch, who, after an examination of the available material, came to the conclusion that this peculiar form of test originated in Celtic territory, but first took literary form in old French poetry. Professor Cross contends that the theme had found an earlier literary framework, independent of the Continental versions, in the Gaelic ballad, and especially in tales belonging to the Ossianic tradition.
