Serbian Folk-lore. Anonymous

thick and tall groves of copal, soparee, guava, and cocoa-nut trees, as told in the story of ‘Rama and Luxman.’[22] Again, the iron teeth of the sister in the Bosniac story make part of the marvels in the Russian story of ‘The Witch,’[23] and has its counterpart in the incident of the Syriote story of ‘The Striga.’[24] The way in which the old woman destroys her victims by throwing around them a hair of her head is also common to these folk-tales, and to several which may be found in the collections of similar tales told in widely separated countries.

[21] Hardy’s ‘Legends and Theories of the Buddhists,’ p. 134. Back

[22] Frere’s ‘Old Deccan Days,’ p. 76. Back

[23] Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk-Tales,’ p. 163. Back

[24] Hahn’s ‘Modern Greek Household Tales,’ No. lxv. Back

The incident of the tree growing out of the grave in the Serb story of ‘The Golden-haired Twins,’ makes also part of the story of ‘Punchkin’ in the collection of stories from the Deccan, where a pomelo tree which springs from the grave of a murdered person leads to the knowledge of the murder.[25] The same incident again occurs in ‘Truth’s Triumph’ in the same collection,[26] where the hundred and one children of the king and Guzra Bai, after having been destroyed by the ranee, their stepmother, and buried by her orders, have their grave marked by a tree springing spontaneously from it; and when the mango tree has been cut down by the orders of the ranee and directed to be burnt, a sudden rising of the water prevents the order from being carried out, and the trunk is floated down to a place of security, stranded on a bank, and again changed into children.

[25] ‘Old Deccan Days,’ p. 4. Back

[26] Ibid, p. 54. Back

Another of what I have ventured to call ‘primitive fragments,’ because commonly made use of in the construction of the folk-tales of various races, makes its appearance in the story of ‘The Biter Bit.’ In that story the giant demands as his reward that he should receive what the old man had ‘forgotten at home;’ and obtains one of his sons, who had been left behind when his numerous brothers had set out on their bride-seeking expedition. This reappears in the Russian tale of ‘The Water King and Vasilissa the Wise,’[27] and also in the story of ‘The Youth’ from the same lands.[28] The latter part of the story resembles the incidents in the Indian tale of ‘Sringabhuja.’ In ‘Peppercorn’ the episode of the maces which the hero requires, and with which he is unsatisfied until the third has been made to stand the test of being thrown into the air and descending on the forehead of ‘Peppercorn’ without breaking the mace, but merely bruising the forehead of the hero, occurs not only in the Serbian tale of ‘The Bear’s Son,’ but also the Russian story of ‘Ivan Popyalof,’ of which Mr. Ralston has given us a translation; whilst the fraud practised on ‘Peppercorn’ by his two companions who leave him in the deep hole down which he has descended, and his subsequent adventures both below and on the earth, are almost identical with incidents in another Russian folk-tale, ‘The Norka.’[29]

[27] Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk-Tales,’ p. 120. Back

[28] Ibid, p. 139. Back

[29] Ibid, p. 73. Back

       I have noted these various resemblances and borrowings, or rather variations from one and the same original, because they illustrate the way in which the tales found in all parts of the world have been built up of fragments which are the common property of mankind. I have not thought it necessary to trace out all the resemblances to other tales—all the borrowings from the common stock. Most of my readers will be able to do that for themselves. I have but adduced them by way of example of story-building. They, however, show us that the stock of original materials out of which these folk-tales have been constructed is, comparatively speaking, of but limited extent, and also that the large number of tales which compose the popular literature of the world are but evidences of the skill with which these scanty materials have been combined by the folk-teachers. The literature of a nation is after all but the result of the combination of some five-and-twenty sounds and letters.

      In Serbia there is a curious distinction in the use of prose and rhythm in these folk-stories. Prose is the vehicle for tales related by women; rhythm the prerogative of men. Prose stories are usually told in the domestic circle, and in gatherings of women at Selo or Prelo. During the summer evenings when field labour and household occupations have come to a close, it was, and indeed still is, customary in Serbian villages for young girls, accompanied by some older female friends, to gather in groups under the branches of some wide-spreading tree, and then, whilst the younger people occupy themselves in spinning, some of the older women interest the rest of the company by relating these traditionary stories. Men are excluded from these gatherings, and the story-telling which fills up the chief part of these evenings is looked on as exclusively a feminine occupation. These stories are always in prose.

      There are, indeed, men story-tellers. Their tales or stories, however, invariably assume the character of poems, and they are generally—indeed almost always—accompanied by the monotonous sounds of the “gusle.” Generally speaking, these poems relate to historical or mythical incidents in the life of the nation; though sometimes they are of the same kind as the folk-tales which are given in this volume, and which are related in the feminine circle. When this is the case the distinction already noted is, however, strictly observed. The folk-tale related by a woman is in prose; the same tale told by a man is cast into the form of a poem. Even the purely Christian legends, of which the reader is presented in this volume with a specimen popular in Bosnia and the Herzégovina, ‘The Legend of St. George,’ is related with the aid of rhythm. Legends of the latter kind may have been, as some suppose, originally related by priests in their churches, and possibly in prose. Now, however, that they have passed into the possession of the professional story-tellers they have put on the masculine garb of verse. This Homeric feature of Serb customs is indeed now dying out with other national peculiarities. It is, however, far from being dead, nor are such verses employed only in celebrating the glories of the reign of Stephen Dushan, the heroism of George Brankovich, or the mournful defeat of Kossovo. Long tedious debates in the National Parliament, or Skoupshtina, of 1870, on the liberty of opening and keeping shops in