Greek Folk Songs Research Articles

The Marble Threshing Floor: A Collection of Greek Folksongs

The Marble Threshing Floor: A Collection of Greek Folksongs

Some Greek Folk Songs of the Lower World

WHAT is written here is really I begin to see now only the beginning, one very small scratch at the surface, of a much larger investigation of the meanings of folk song and folktale and that is why this journey to the World of the Dead, as it appears in some Greek Folk Songs, begins in a hesitating and roundabout manner. Well then how did I come to make this journey into the twilight realm of Gloomie Hades? I had been reading Professor Dawkins' 45 Folktalesfrom the Dodekanese, and had been impressed by part of the Introduction in which he explains how 'ideas and feelings about life', ideas and feelings which cannot be directly expressed and often remain unconscious or not consciously formulated, may be 'conveyed in the concrete external shape of a story', and after that I began to think that any work of art, if it is good enough to survive at all, must express more than the maker's conscious beliefs and must include some serious statement about

Modern Greek Folk-Songs of the Dead

This paper is only a small scratch at the surface of a much larger investigation of the meanings of folk-song and folk-tale—and that is why this journey to the World of the Dead, as it appears in some Greek folk-songs, begins in a hesitating and roundabout manner. I had been reading Professor Dawkins's Forty-five Stories from the Dodekanese, and had been impressed by part of the Introduction in which he explains how ‘ideas and feelings about life’, which cannot be directly expressed and often remain unconscious or not consciously formulated, may be ‘conveyed in the concrete external shape of a story’, and after that I began to think that any work of art, ifit is good enough to survive at all, must express more than the maker's conscious beliefs and must include some serious statement about the nature of the world. All good folk-tales and all good folk-songs have a hidden meaning, and that is why they survive. In the brain of James Barrie some feeling about the nature of Time and History must have been germinating when he wrote in Peter Pan about the crocodile which swallowed the alarm-clock; and I wondered if he had ever heard the Chinese folk-tale about the dragon that swallowed the moon. From that my thoughts went to Alice in Wonderland, which tells us not only a great deal about the hidden temperament of Lewis Carroll but also something he had felt about life, and something more than he found satisfactorily expressed in his religion. If this feeling of his was of any importance, the view that it expressed, or the feeling that produced such a view, would be shared by others, and a similar expression of it would turn up somewhere else. That led to thoughts about the World under the Ground, the World Below, the Under World—ὁ κάτω κόσμος.

Book Reviews

GREEK FOLK SONGS. Reviewed by W. R. Halliday. A HISTORY OF MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE DURING THE FIRST THIRTEEN CENTURIES OF OUR ERA. By LYNN THORNDIKE, Ph.D. London: Macmillan & Co. 1923. 42s. net. 2 vols. Reviewed by R. R. Marett. THE GOLDEN BOUGH : A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION. By Sir J. G. FRAZER. Macmillan & Co. Ltd. 1923. Reviewed by W. Crooke. THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AND THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD : THE BELIEF AMONG THE POLYNESIANS : GIFFORD LECTURES. Vol. ii. The same author and publishers. 1923. Reviewed by W. Crooke. EARLY CIVILISATION. AN INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY. By ALEXANDER A. GOLDENWEISER. George G. Harrap & Co. 1922. Pp. xiv+428. Illustrated. Price 15s. Reviewed by W. R. Halliday. MAGICAL JEWELS OF THE RENAISSANCE MIDDLE AGES AND THE RENAISSANCE, PARTICULARLY IN ENGLAND. By JOAN EVANS, B.Litt. Oxford Clarendon Press. 1922. 264 pp. 8vo. Reviewed by M. Gaster. THE HEROIC AGE IN INDIA. Reviewed by W. Crooke. THE LHOTA NAGAS. By J. P. MILLS. London : Macmillan & Co. 1922. Price 25s. Reviewed by W. Crooke. ANCIENT MAN IN BRITAIN. By D. A. MACKENZIE. With a Foreword by G. ELLIOT SMITH. Blackie. 1922. Reviewed by W. Crooke. CHILDREN'S STORIES FROM ROUMANIAN LEGENDS AND FAIRY TALES. By M. GASTER. London : Raphael Tuck & Sons. 1922.