the MS., 'the only copy in Great Britain,' had been deposited at 25 Heriot Row, Edinburgh, where it will be exhibited to all who may desire its inspection;' but I have not been able to ascertain that this permission was taken advantage of by any skilled expert. It is curious that in the Reply no information is afforded of the resting-place of the original MS., which six years previously had been in the possession of John Sobieski Stuart.

I cannot, at present, enter on an examination of this curious. work, the Vestiarium Scoticum. In order to deal with it adequately, a separate and lengthend article would be required. And the moment is not yet ripe for such an investigation; for it has been recently announced that one of the MSS. of the work, understood to be that of 1721, has been discovered by a member of the Lyon Office, already known as a student of Scottish antiquities, and that the results of his examination and investigations may be looked for. When these have been placed before the public I may return to the subject.

In the meantime, I may conclude by remarking that, even if the authenticity of the Vestiarium were established beyond a doubt and this I do not expect to see-proof of the assertion that distinctive clan tartans were worn in the Highlands during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries would still be wanting. The writer of the Vestiarium informs us that in his day there had bene sene dyuers oncothe chaunges in the auld Scotysche fashioune' of costume, and that 'ye ain native guise' was falling into disuse. If his work comes to be regarded as authentic, we must then believe that, with the lapse of time, distinctive clan tartans were abandoned; for the evidence against their use, from the end of the sixteenth to the latter part of the eighteenth century, afforded by the costumes appearing in Scottish portraits painted during that period, may be regarded as practically conclusive.

J. M. GRAY.

ART. IV.-SPIELMANN ROMANCES-SALMAN AND

MOROLF.

Die Deutschen Dichtungen von Salomon und Morolf, herausgegeben von Friedrich Vogt. Erster band, Salman und Morolf. Halle. 1880.

The HE Spielmann poems, two of which were presented to our readers in former numbers of this Review,* deal in the main with the same theme. They all tell of a Christian king who sailed across the sea to fetch or to recover a wife. He has to fight for her with heathen foes, and these voyages and battles belong to the age of the Crusades. The scene is in the East, in a land of which the poet has the vaguest ideas in point of geography, and where marvels of all kinds abound. The romance of Salman and Morolf, of which we now propose to give a sketch, also presents these features, which we have seen in Orendel and in Rother. Salman is Solomon, transformed into a Christian emperor who rules at Jerusalem-here a seaport-and who conducts maritime expeditions against heathen potentates whose capitals are also on the sea. Morolf, we may at once say, is his brother; a brother of whom the Old Testament contains no mention, but who was born to him in the growth of early legend. It must be our first task to indicate how the legend, here treated by a popular poet for production in the market-place, about the end of the twelfth century, grew up and arrived in Germany. The reader will find that this poem is in some parts very loose in its construction, and it appears to us to be inferior both in the depth of its sentiment and in the vigour of its movement to the works formerly dealt with here. The legend however has a history of peculiar interest; few stories have undergone such curious transformations in so many lands. In his admirable edition of the poem, Mr. Vogt has examined its growth with much care; and while many of his statements are hypothetical, his collection of the facts is an admirable one.

*

Scottish Review, No. xxxix., 'The Legend of Orendel; Ibid., No. XLIII., ‘The Romance of King Rother.'

*

The Jewish imagination was very busy with Solomon; as the builder of the temple, most sacred and most wonderful of buildings, he was a figure of the greatest interest. His wisdom was famous; the Rabbis made him a master of hidden knowledge who had intercourse with spirits, especially with Asmodeus, the chief of the demons, and was able to avail himself of their power. But this intercourse was dangerous; Solomon was not a truly good man like his father David, who gave himself to the study of the law with the zeal of a later scribe. The demon therefore, with whom he had too much intercourse, took advantage of him, cast him down from his throne, and for a time reigned in his stead. Solomon was reduced to wandering about from one school of the law to another, bearing another name, and uttering the sad words (Eccles. i. 12), ‘I, Koheleth, was King of Israel in Jerusalem,' no one believing him. † Thus the adversary of Solomon and the fall of Solomon were standing themes of legend. Before his fall he had power over all the realms of nature; the animals of the earth and air as well as the spirits, came at his summons to do his bidding; he sent a letter to the Queen of Sheba by a bird, scholars are not certain whether the hoopoe or the woodcock. In Arab legend his power over the creatures is specially connected with his ring, a ring with four stones representing the four realms of nature. It is when he parts with his ring to Asmodeus that his power departs from him. Another feature of the story is that his fall is connected with his marriage of heathen princesses and with his permitting them to set up at Jerusalem the worship of their own gods. These gods were demons, and when they were worshipped in his capital, Solomon himself joining in that worship, he could not keep them so well in subjection as formerly. Worst of all was his marriage with the daughter of the King of Egypt. A heathen princess was naturally allied with the demons and their rulers, and so it came to pass that Solomon's wife had an understanding with the

*

In Eisenmenger's Entdeckter Judenthum there is a great deal of this.

+ The medieval tale of which Longfellow gives a beautiful version in

his King Robert of Sicily,' is no doubt founded on this of the Talmud.

prince of the demons, who was aiming at Solomon's overthrow; his marriage therefore led directly to his downfall.

In passing through Greek lands the legend received various modifications. Solomon continues to wear the character of a great magician; the apocryphal works attributed to him in Christian times deal chiefly with his rule over the demons, and the means he used and recommended to others for keeping such beings in subjection and making use of them. The demons themselves are conceived in accordance with Greek rather than Oriental ideas; and in particular, Solomon is believed to have command of an army of animals with the body of a horse and the head of a man, centaurs, who come to his aid on any emergency.

The story is next found in Russian folk-lore and in the Spielmann. Mr. Vogt has had access to Russian collections which are not, so far as I know, accessible to the English reader, and finds that the story of Solomon exists among the Russian peasantry, in a simpler form than that of the Spielmann, but at the same time not the form in which the latter can have found it. Both the later forms of the story point to an intermediate form, probably Byzantine, which is now lost, but admits of being constructed by comparing together the two later tales. In the Byzantine story the old legend of Solomon had received important additions. A brother of Solomon had made his appearance, and had taken the place of Solomon's adversary, Asmodeus. And in place of the league of Solomon's wife with his adversary, there was an abduction of the queen by the brother. Where the brother came from it is hard to say. In the first book of Kings Solomon's brother, Adonijah, claims the throne in opposition to him; and after his claim has been disposed of, he becomes a suitor for the hand of Abishag, the Shunamite, David's last nurse; a claim which is thought so dangerous that he is put to death on account of it. Mr. Vogt thinks it possible that this may be the basis on which the later legend provides Solomon with a brother who is also his adversary and carries off his wife. The brother-adversary inherits the qualities of the demon-adversary whom he displaces from the legend; he is a centaur, and a magician. The other features of the supposed Byzantine tale are that Solomon proceeds at the head

of an army of centaurs to recover his wife, but leaves his army in a wood, bidding them appear at once on hearing the sound of his horn. He then proceeds, disguised as a beggar, to the palace to which the queen has been carried, and is at once recognised by her and placed in confinement. The centaur, on his return home, allows Solomon to choose the manner of his death, and he chooses to be hung on a gallows near the wood. A large crowd goes with him; he asks to be allowed to sound his horn before he dies, and this is granted to him, though much against the will of the queen. As soon as his horn is heard the army appears out of the wood, the crowd who came to see the proceedings is massacred, the abductor and the abducted hanged on the gallows prepared for Solomon.

In an old Russ story the abductor is Kitovras, a word the etymologist will identify without difficulty with Centaurus; and he is moreover a brother of Solomon, and reigns over men by day, but at night over beasts, being himself turned into a beast. He has carried off Solomon's wife by means of magic. Solomon appears as a beggar, seeking to get back his wife, and is received by a young lady, through whom he sends a signal to the Queen. The Queen, however, knows at once that the stranger is no beggar, but my old husband, Solomon.' She asks and he answers, what might be expected, and Kitovras when he comes in, orders Solomon to be hung. There is to be a great feast under the gallows, and after arriving there Solomon asks permission to blow his horn. He is allowed to do so; at the first blast his men arm, at the second, when his feet are on the ladder, they approach and hide themselves in an ambush. At the third blast they burst out and cut down the crowd of enemies. Kitovras, the wife of Solomon, and the magician by whom the abduction was carried out, are hanged, with silk ropes, for Solomon had asked for this indulgence, when he himself was about to be the victim.

In a Russ folk-song, the story appears with certain variations which show later development. Solomon's Queen, here named Salmanija, is carried off by the servant of a handsome Emperor, called Vasilj Okuljevië, who had heard of her beauty. She is enticed on board a ship which has arrived at Jerusalem loaded