Their collective whimper was augmented by an even more strident note when a close reading of the Companion generated my own displeasure over highly biased allocation of entry space and quite inadequate headings, which were often too inclusive. And this reaction seemed all the more unnecessary when the Appendix of this Companion clearly showed itself to be aware of past problems with methodology!

This Appendix thus points out the difficulty and incompatibility of subject headings from different library systems. It tells of the resultant confusion where information remains ‘hidden’ and researchers ‘have to extend their search … into less obvious corners in the effort to second-guess the indexer/cataloguer’. Furthermore, the point is made that items can ‘become lost in ... broad subject areas ... (or) appear under unexpected subject headings’. (Well then, who would look up the coy ‘Bawdry’ when Swearing would be the expected entry?) With this stated realisation of such problems it is almost as if the editors of this Companion wilfully neglected the methodological lessons thus stated.

Thus, while the general public will be amply rewarded in their rush for information on the ‘Australian Painters’ and Whipmakers’ Society’, ‘(Gum)Leaf playing’, and ‘Karagiozis’, they will have to round up numerous entries with all the zeal of a drover’s dog before they find even a brief mention of Buckley’s Chance (see ‘Names’), Depression Folklore (see ‘Humour’), and Azaria Chamberlain (see ‘Folk Belief’). And the imbalance of space for entries is nowhere more apparent than in the editors’ preferential weighing of multicultural entries. Thus ‘Dad and Dave’ receives three very short sentences while Greek shadow theatre (‘Karagiozis’)is entered under three headings and receives over five pages of attention!

Many readers will, I feel, revert back to Bill Wannan’s Australian Folklore dictionary (1970), which, for all its idiosyncrasies and overloading of entries from popular culture rather than folklore (can we be so sure of our categories anyway?), still retains a relevance.

The Companion follows in the steps of other august Companions and Dictionaries from Oxford University Press. However, unlike for example the witty Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951), which wears its erudition lightly and communicates its abundant enthusiasm generously, this newcomer to the series will not easily engage the reading public per se. This is not a book with which the general reader will while away an afternoon, although it could have been. It is therefore more properly and usefully evaluated as a work of reference for the specific enquiry and the determined enquirer.

As such I have already intimated that there is simply not enough cross-referencing to add vitality, additional utility, and diversity to the work. Entries are categorised under somewhat hermetic headings and, while I continually reminded myself that this was a Companion and not a Dictionary, I could not but regret that mere mention of items seemed to preclude any further forthcoming information. For example in ‘Folk Poetry’, although traditional Australian epitaphs, limericks, and autograph rhymes are mentioned as categories, there are no examples included. And ‘Graffiti’ refers us to ‘Ian Turner’ without any examples being quoted or even Turner’s work, the only (?) book on Australian graffiti, being footnoted.

As with any such reference book, anyone and everyone can and will find fault with it for omitting or undervaluing their particular area of folk interest. This in itself can render the whole somewhat thankless task for the editors, yet even so there are serious and rather inexplicable omissions which must be pointed out. The most glaring of these omissions to my eyes is the failure to acknowledge the debt much of our mainstream adult literature and the whole history of our published children’s literature owes to folklore.

Our contemporary adult literature, in particular, seems to be delving into folklore and it is often the darker side that acts as an inspiration. While it is true that a contemporary novel such as Glen Tomasetti’s Thoroughly Decent People (1976) is noted in passing, other equally significant workings of national folklife and folklore in our recent fiction remain unremarked: Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, Tim Winton’s ln the Winter Dark, Rodney Hall’s The Second Bridegroom, and Carmel Bird’s The Bluebird Cafe come immediately to mind, let alone the folklore that infuses much of the work of Peter Carey, David Malouf, and others. None of this apparently gets a cooee! They could be hidden under impenetrable headings waiting to be noticed; they deserve a lucid exposition of their own.

However, the most inconceivable omission of all is surely in the area of our children’s literature. The work of May Gibbs in particular, both textual and pictorial, introduced Australian nurseries ever since 1916 to an original folklore of the bush. Her Banksia Men and Bush Babies were perhaps white Australia’s first pictorial folklore and it has permeated all levels of society. These characters, in short, entered into our national vocabulary and whether in a folklore of fear or a folklore of fantasy have become a central and continuing part of the Australian experience.

One hopes this omission from the Companion is not a value judgement on the part of the editors. May Gibbs herself would probably retaliate with one of her typically terse phrases from the gumnut classics: ‘Root and shoot them!’

Robert Holden was reference librarian whose most recent folklore work, Twinkle, Twinkle Southern Cross (National Library), documented the history of nursery rhymes in Australia.