Some Popular Superstitions of the Ancients

This article provides an introductory discussion of the ways in which popular perceptions of artworks, artists, and the creative process have generated a repertoire of recurring motifs. Sometimes reinforced by art historical research and documentary evidence and sometimes at variance with all such scholarship, the tropes of ‘artlore’ constitute a catalogue of persistent story types that spring from visual interpretation experienced within a shifting cultural context.     

Manx Folk-Lore and Superstitions

Mythes, Cultes et Religion, par A. Lang, traduit par Léon Marillier. Bibliothèque de Philosophic contemporaine, Paris: F. Alcan. 1896. By A. C. H.

Bahama Songs and Stories. A contribution to Folklore. By Charles L. Edwards, Ph. D., Professor of Biology in the University of Cincinnati. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin &; Co., 1895.

Studies in Ancient History : The Second Series, comprising an Inquiry into the Origin of Exogamy. By the late John Ferguson M'Lennan. Edited by his Widow and Arthur Platt. London : Macmillan and Co. Limited. 1896.

Henry Callaway, M. D., D. D., First Bishop of Kaffraria. His Life-History, and Work. A Memoir by Marian S. Benham. Edited by the Rev. Canon Benham. London: Macmillan &; Co., Limited. 1896.

Horde und Familie in ihrer urgeschichtlichen Entwickelung. Eine neue Theorie auf statistischer Grundlage von Dr. Joh. Richard Mucke. Stuttgart, Enke: 1895, 8vo.     

Seven Children at One Birth

ANCIENT BALLADS. TRADITIONALLY SUNG IN NEW ENGLAND. Compiled and edited by HELEN HARKNESS FLANDERS. Vol. I. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. 80s. Reviewed by K. M. Briggs.

HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES, A SELECTION, Translated by W. L. KINGSLAND. The World's Classics, Oxford, Reviewed by K. M. Briggs.

ST JAMES IN SPAIN. By T. D. KENDRICK. Methuen, 1960. Pp. 223. 25s. Reviewed by E. O. James.

HUMANIORA. ESSAYS IN LITERATURE. FOLKLORE. BIBLIOGRAPHY Honouring Archer Taylor on his Seventieth Birthday. Edited WAYLAND D. HAND and GUSTAVE O. ARLT. J. J. Augustin, Locust Valley, N.Y., 1960. Pp. viii + 374. $10.00. Reviewed by H. J. Rose.

HIMMELSSTIER UND GLETSCHERLÖWE. Translated and edited by M. HERMANNS. 1955. Pp. 259, 2 maps, 1 photograph. DAS ELEFANTENSPIEL. Edited by L. KOHL-LARSEN. 1956. Pp. 233, 1 map, 1 photograph. STIMME DES WASSERBÜFFELS. Edited by H. NEVERMANN, 1956. Pp. 242. All Eisenach and Kassel (Röth Verlag). Reviewed by Ellen Ettlinger.

THE PEOPLE ARE COMING SOON. Analyses of Clackamas Chinook Myths and Tales. By Melville Jacobs. University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1960. Reviewed by C. A. Burland.

DEUTSCHES JAHRBUCH FÜR VOLKSKUNDE. Vol. v, Part ii. Berlin, 1959. Pp. (230)–548, plates ix–xx, 4 maps, 25 text illustrations. Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

THE FOUNDLING AND THE WEREWOLF. A LITERARY-HISTORICAL STUDY OF GUILLAUME DE PALERNE. By CHARLES W. DUNN, Toronto University Press. Oxford University Press, London, 1960. 40s. Reviewed by Mary Williams.

THE LEGEND OF MERLIN. By A. O. JARMANN. University of Wales Press, 1960. Pp. 1–31. 3s. Reviewed by Mary Williams.

THE SCALLOP: studies of a shell and its influences on humankind by eight authors. Edited by IAN COX, C.B.E., M.A. Published in London by the Shell Transport and Trading Company, 1957. Reviewed by Barbara Aitken.

A HISTORY OP BANBURY. By WILLIAM POTTS. The Banbury Guardian Ltd., 1958. Reviewed by Christina Hole.     

Manx Folk-Lore and Superstitions. II

This paper explores the emergent legend of Colton Harris-Moore, the Barefoot Bandit, to locate its place within American folk legendry. Analysis builds off the work of Eric Hobsbawm and Graham Seal, highlighting how folklorists might re-envision classifications and representations of banditry in constantly changing yet specific populations and environments.     

Highland Fisher-Folk and their Superstitions.

Studies on the history of folkloristics in colonial India during the second part of the nineteenth century have been hampered by excessive focus on European folklorists who published extensive collections of Indian folklore. The role of the indigenous folklorists and their agendas, as well as their ways of knowing and constructing folklore, has been ignored. The present article examines the contributions of the indigenous scholar V. N. Narasimmiyengar, an Indian civil servant in Mysore. It seeks to trace, examine, and analyse his active contribution to the making of folklore studies. The case of Narasimmiyengar may be regarded as representative of an engagement with modernity that led to a view of folklore as traditional, rural, and in need of the touch of civilization.     

祥龙瑞彩 探索中国龙的足迹

龙的形象并非空穴来风,其有因由,有传承,有故事,在中华民族从原始走向现代,从愚昧走向文明的过程中起源,融合,发展,翻开中国龙的历史,其形象之多变令人为之目眩,千种姿态,万般风流,既可作成庄严凝重的庞然大物,又可变为蜷体蟠结的小巧灵兽,在几千年的龙象演变和龙文化创作中,它始终不离各个时代所共同经营缔造的不同审美风格,1月18日至3月20日,首都博物馆在2012在欢腾喜悦的中国农历新年的开年之际,推出以龙为主题的龙年文化大展,邀观众一同探索中国龙的足迹,寻觅龙的身影,发现中国龙的前世今生,感受这份因龙而生的精神归宿。     

魏晋南北朝生育风俗述

魏晋南北朝时期重男轻女生育观念,使各种迷信的求子活动大行其道,孕妇保健和胎教初具影响,生产与养育也产生了一些约容俗成的做法,并积演成为一定的风俗习惯。社会地位和个人身份的区别,使各个家庭在相应社会资源的享有和占用方面有很大的不同,等级观念在生育风俗上清晰可见。     

Birth control,population control,and family planning: an overview

This overview of the US birth control movement reflects on the emergence of family planning policy due to the efforts of Margaret Sanger, feminists, and the civil rights movement, the eugenics motive to limit "deviant" populations, and the population control movement, which aims to solve social and economic problems through fertility control. Population control moved through three stages: from the cause of "voluntary motherhood" to advance suffrage and women's political and social status, to the concept of "birth control" promoted by socialist feminists to help empower women and the working class, to, from 1920 on, a liberal movement for civil rights and population control. Physicians such as Dr. Robert Latou Dickinson legitimized the movement in the formation of the Committee on Maternal Health in 1925, but the movement remained divided until 1939, when Sanger's group merged with the American Birth Control League, the predecessor of the present Planned Parenthood Federation of America. A key legal decision in 1939 in the United States v. One Package amended the Comstock Act and allowed for the distribution of birth control devices by mail to physicians. Sanger, after a brief retirement, formed the International Planned Parenthood Federation and supported research into the pill. Eugenicists through the Committee on Maternal Health supported Christopher Tietze and others developing the pill. Final constitutional access to contraception based on the right to privacy was granted in Griswold v. Connecticut. The ruling in Eisenstadt v. Baird in 1972 extended this right to unmarried persons. The right to privacy was further extended in the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 on legal abortion. The argument for improving the quality of the population remained from the formation of the Population Reference Bureau in 1929 through the 1960s. Under the leadership of Rockefeller, population control was defined as justified on a scientific and humanitarian basis. US government support for national and international family planning proceeded slowly through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Congress during 1967-70 enacted strong legislation in support of national and international family planning. The Bucharest conference in 1974 highlighted the inadequacies of international population control that deemphasized economic development. Polarization and divisiveness on population policy persists.