gave an English version, "Lady Featherflight," in the Transactions of the International Folklore Congress of 1891, pp. 40-7, and adds a considerable number of variants from all parts of the world. The most interesting of these is one from Samoa, of all places in the world, given from Turner's Samoa a Hundred Years Ago, p. 102 seq. This has been commented upon by Mr. Lang in his paper on "A Far-Traveled Tale," in Custom and Myth, p. 87 seq. Its interest is the greater since many of the incidents, as, for instance, those of the flight, exactly almost totidem verbis as in some of the European versions. I wrote to Mr. Stevenson, pointing out the importance of the story for folklore purposes, and asking him to investigate it in situ, and he kindly promised to do so. But, unfortunately, death broke off that as well as many other promises.
The existence of these parallels in the Argonaut Legend in Folklore sufficiently indicates the direction in which research and inquiry should be made. Dr. Seeliger, like all Teutonic investigators, deals with the subject as part of Mythology, though in all the enormous mass of literature that he brings to bear upon the subject in the ancient world there is no sign that any of the heroes or heroines were treated with divine honors. (A casual reference of Pindar's to the "immortal" Medeia is almost the sole exception.) At best, the story is a Greek Saga or Hero Tale, and if any elucidation of the various incidents of the story is to be found we must not neglect the parallels afforded by folk tales. The Argonaut Legend is, therefore, an interesting instance in which we can contrast the German and the English method of dealing with hero tales.
Remarks.—In Dr. Seeliger's long article upon the Argonauts he first gives an abstract of the Legend according to Apollonius Rhodius: he then gives a list of the Argonauts, who were fifty in all, though sixty-seven names of them have been compiled by Dr. Seeliger's perseverance and erudition. He then gives the literary tradition of the
