PRINCE MARKO AND THE VEELA
Prince Marko and Milosh of Potzerye rode early one morning across the beauteous mountain Mirotch, carrying their lances and trotting their steeds. They loved each other so dearly that they would now and then embrace. Suddenly Marko began to doze on his Sharatz, and tried to persuade his companion to sing something in order to keep him awake. Thereupon Milosh answered: “O dear brother-in-God, thou Royal Prince Marko! I would gladly sing a song for thee, but last night when I was with veela Raviyoyla, I drank far too much wine, and she threatened, in truth she promised, to pierce both my heart and my throat with arrows if she ever heard me sing again.”
But Marko insisted: “Oh do sing, brother dear! Fear not the veela as long as I, Prince Marko, live; and as long as I have Sharatz and my six-edged club!”
So Milosh to please his pobratim, began to sing a beautiful song telling of their valiant and virtuous ancestors; how they had held kingdoms and ruled in succession over the much-honoured land of Macedonia; and how every one of those good sovereigns had erected a shrine or a church.
The song pleased Marko so much that, lulled by Milosh’s melodious voice, he fell asleep. But it happened that the veela also heard the song, and began to sing in turn with Milosh, doing all the time her very best to show him that she sang better than he did. Milosh really sang better, for he possessed a magnificent voice, and this fact much irritated the veela; she took two slim arrows, twanged her bow, and transfixed first Milosh’s throat and then his heart.
Milosh uttered a piercing cry: “Alas, O my mother! Alas, Marko, my brother-in-God! The veela has shot me with her arrows! Did I not tell thee, O pobratim, that I must not sing on the mountain Mirotch?”