Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
Roymans' paper is ambitious – and short. Perhaps a little too short: there were a good many junctures where I felt there was much more that could be said, and certainly the bibliography could be greatly extended. The excitement of the paper lies in the methodological cross-over between archaeological and folkloric materials, which I found both convincing and informative, and in the time-depth that Roymans permits himself. In a rather odd reversal, I felt that the paper was more interestingly complex than the Introduction suggested.