[21] In Sweden, when the guests sit down to the bridal banquet, an old woman decked in a wreath of birch-bark, in which straw and goose-feathers are interwoven, and grotesquely dressed up with jingling harness, is led in and presented to the bridegroom as his consort, while in a pompous speech her charms are expatiated upon. She is chased away with clamorous hooting, whereupon the bridesmen go out again, and after a mock search they lead in the bride.
[22] Supposed to denote fruitfulness.
[23] There is a story told of a village (but whether Hungarian or Roumanian I am unable to say) which, up to the year 1536, used to be inhabited by cripples, hunchbacks, lame, maimed, and blind men only, and which went by the name of the “Republic of Cripples.” No well-grown and healthy persons were ever suffered to settle here, for fear of spoiling the deformity of their race, and all new-born children unlucky enough to enter the world with normally organized frames were instantly mutilated.
The inhabitants of this village, turning these infirmities to account, made a play of wandering over the country begging and singing at all fairs and markets, and trading on the compassion excited by their wretched appearance. They had also their own language, called the language of the blind, and were in so far privileged above the useful and industrious citizens as to be exempted from all taxes.
[24] The Council of Constantinople, 869, forbade the members of the Oriental Church to keep the feast of the pagan goddess Kolinda, or Lada, occurring on the shortest day. These Kolinda songs appear to be of Slav origin, since we find the Koleda among the Bohemians, Serbs, and Slavonians, the Koleda among Poles, and the Kolad with the Russians. Yet further proof of this would seem to be that unmistakable resemblance to the Slav words Kaulo, Kul, Kolo, a round dance—applying, no doubt, to the rotation of the sun, which on this day begins afresh. Grimm, however, in his Mythology, makes out the name to be derived from the Latin Calendæ.
[25] The meaning of this I take to be, that the dangers we recognize and run away from are smaller than those we encounter without knowing it.
[26] The Hospodar Negru, or Nyagou as he is sometimes called, reigned from 1513 to 1521. Long detained as hostage at the Court of Sultan Selim I., he had the opportunity of studying Oriental architecture, and himself directed the building of a celebrated mosque which had, we are told, no less than 999 windows and 366 minarets. This edifice so delighted the Sultan that he set Nyagou at liberty, presenting him with all the rich materials remaining over from the building of the mosque, in order to erect a church in his native country. Returning thither, he is said to have brought with him the celebrated architect Manoll, or Manolli, by birth a Phanariot, who, with his wife Annika, is immortalized in this ballad.
[27] A prose translation of this poem appeared in Stanley’s “Rouman Anthology,” 1856.
[28] This allusion to prayer and magic in the same breath is thoroughly characteristic of the Roumanian’s religion.
[29] By B. Alexandri.