The Provencal religious songs, poor though they are from a literary point of view, yet possess more points of interest than can be commonly looked for in folk-songs which treat of religion. They contain frequent allusions to beliefs that have to be sought either in the earliest apocryphal writings of the Christian aera, or in the lately unearthed records of rabbinical tradition. Various of them have regard to what is still, as M. Lentheric says, "one of the great popular emotions of the South of France"--the reputed presence there of Mary Magdalene. M. Lentheric is convinced that certain Jewish Christians, flying from persecution at home, did come to Provence (between the ports of which and the East there was constant communication) a short time after the Crucifixion. He is further inclined to give credit to the impression that Mary Magdalene and her companions were among these fugitives. I will not go into the reasons that have been urged against the story by English and German scholars; it is enough for us that it is a popular credence of very ancient origin. One side issue of it is particularly worth noting. A little servant girl named Sara is supposed to have accompanied the Jewish emigrants, and her the gypsies of Provence have adopted as their patroness. Once a year they pay their respects to her tomb at Saintes Maries de la Mer. This is almost the only case in which the gypsy race has shown any disposition to identify itself with a religious cultus. The fairy legend of Tarascon is another offshoot from the main tradition. "Have you seen the Tarasque?" I was asked in the course of a saunter through that town one cold morning between the hours of seven and eight. It seemed that the original animal was kept in a stall. To stimulate my anxiety to make its acquaintance I was handed the portrait of a beast, half hedgehog, half hippopotamus, out of whose somewhat human jaw dangled the legs of a small boy. Later I heard the story from the lips of the sister of the landlord at the primitive little inn; much did it gain from the vivacious grace of the narrator, in whom there is as surely proof positive of a Greek descent as can be seen in any of the more famous daughters of Arles. "When the friends of our Lord landed in Provence, St Mary Magdalene went to Sainte Baume, St Lazarus to Marseilles, and St Martha came here to Tarascon. Now there was a terrible monster called the Tarasque, which was desolating all the country round and carrying off all the young children to eat. When St Martha was told of the straits the folks were in, she went out to meet the monster with a piece of red ribbon in her hand. Soon it came, snorting fire out of its nostrils; but the saint threw the red ribbon over its neck, and lo! it grew quite still and quiet, and followed her back into the town as if it had been a good dog. To keep the memory of this marvel, we at Tarascon have a wooden Tarasque, which we take round the town at Whitsuntide with much rejoicing.