96 [This festival furnished the subject and the title for Mickiewicz's greatest poem, next to Pan Tadeusz. The poet's own explanation of it is in part as follows: “This is the name of a festival still celebrated among the common folk in many districts of Lithuania, Prussia, and Courland. The festival goes back to pagan times, and was formerly called the feast of the goat (koziel), the director of which was the kozlarz, at once priest and poet. At the present time, since the enlightened clergy and landowners have been making efforts to root out a custom accompanied by superstitious practices and often by culpable excesses, the folk celebrate the forefathers secretly in chapels or in empty houses not far from the graveyard. There they ordinarily spread a feast of food, drink, and fruits of various sorts and invoke the spirits of the dead. The folk hold the opinion that by this food and drink and by their songs they bring relief to souls in Purgatory.”]
97 [See note [1]]
98 [The original here has a delightful pun. Gerwazy misunderstands his lord's high-flown word wassalow (vassals) as wonsalow (mustachioed champions). A long mustache was the dearest [pg 345] adornment of a Polish gentleman; compare Gerwazy's description of Jacek on pages [43] and [115], where wonsal is the title given him in the original.]
99 [The last three names might be translated, Cuttem, Slashem, Whackem.]
100 [The buzdygan or mace was the staff of office of certain subordinate officers in the Polish army, as the bulawa was that of the hetmans or generals. Each was a short rod with a knob at the end, but the knob on the bulawa was round, that on the buzdygan was pear-shaped, with longitudinal notches.]
101 [See note [82].]
102 In Lithuania the name okolica or zascianek is given to a settlement of gentry, to distinguish them from true villages, which are settlements of peasants. [“These zascianki were inhabited by the poorest of the lesser nobility, who were in fact peasants, but possessed of truly Castilian pride. The wearing of a sword being restricted to nobles, it was not unusual to see such zasciankowicze, or peasant nobles, following the plough bare-footed, wearing an old rusty sword hanging at their side by hempen cords.”—Naganowski. In this volume hamlet has been arbitrarily chosen as a translation for the name of these villages of gentry.]
103 [See [page 334].]
104 Kisiel is a Lithuanian dish, a sort of jelly made of oaten yeast, which is washed with water until all the mealy parts are separated from it: hence the proverb. [The literal translation of the Polish line is simply: “To the Horeszkos he is merely the tenth water on the kisiel.”]