Kingship by A. M. Hocart The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 43, No. 167 (Jan. - Mar., 1930), p.

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Book Reviews.

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a classification of tales (recently revised) served as a basis for surveys of tales in various countries. Then, some ten or twelve such surveys have appeared, making it possible to save days in searching collections. Finally a number of studies of particular tales, some of them models of scholarship, have appeared in the series. It is unfortunate that so many important American libraries have failed to subscribe for this fundamental aid in folklore study. As contributor of one of the brilliant studies of folktales in this series, Professor Taylor is to be congratulated on the lucidity and thoroughness of his monograph, which marks a real advance ini the progrees of folk-tale research. STITHTHOMPSON. Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. KINGSHIP. Hocart, A. M. Oxford University Press, American Branch, New
York City. 1927.

Mr. Hocart attempts to analyze the elements of the complex of the sacred king, a culture trait which he believes to be historically related wherever found, in the Pacific Islands or in Great Britain. Choosing his illustrations somewhat at random, he reconstructs a possible and highly complicated picture of the original complex of sacred kingship, an ancestral picture to which all later forms are to be referred. The book contains some valuable new concrete data from Fiji and Ceylon, and an interesting discussion of cultural decadence. HOILIDAYS. Lloyd Champlin Eddy. 1929. The Christopher Publishing House. Boston. is a reference book which contains data arranged in two ways HOITDAYS on the principal holidays the world over. The chronological preface gives the excuses which might be cited for declaring any day of the year a holiday. There follow chapters in which types of special days are discussed: birthdays, political and historical holidays, holidays whose beginnings were religious and have lost the religious significance, and Saints' Days which may still be wholly religious or only days of secular recreation. The work is broad in its scope including holiday customs in all parts of the world. G. A. R. WEST.Ida Virginia Turney with illustrations by Helen PAUI. BUNYAN COMES
Rhodes. 1928. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston. $ 1.25.

This slim but handsome book contains more of the always delightful exaggerations and exploits of the hero of the logging camps. In a few graphic words the author relates the circumstances which led to the origin of Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park, the scratch in the landscape now called the Grand Canyon, the falls of the Skomackaway River, Mt. Ranier and other natural phenomena of the West, west of "Dakoty", that is. The Blue Ox, Babe, which was forty axe handles and a plug o' terbacker between the eyes, is the protagonist of the tale and his innocent perambulations have incredible results. The most striking features of the yarn are: the utter disregard of time and space - an unexpected detour of nine hundred miles set Paul back a whole day of his snowshoe journey; matter-

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