[64]. Dunai: means literally any river.
[65]. Boy children bathed soon after birth in water in which “Lewbistok” has been thrown will be lucky in love.
[66]. Naidorozcha Devchina: dearest girl.
[67]. Wasylki: hyssop. These flowers are used to wreathe the candle held by the bride at her wedding. There is also here the idea of magic properties in the flowers which the maid, who wishes to marry her lover, has planted. This song has a lilting air. The first four lines are andantino, the refrain allegro.
[68]. “The Dream Herb” (a species of anemone) is in the Ukraine considered as something weird and uncanny. It is called Son-travà, literally Dream-grass, and has a flower like a little bell. Maidens pluck it to place under their pillows in early spring, that they may dream of their lovers. But by the rest of the world it is regarded with awe and superstitious fears.
[69]. Tchornobriva: black-browed girl.
[70]. Rushniky: long towels prepared by a mother for her daughter’s dowry: in case of death used to lower the coffin.
[71]. Ptashka: little bird.
[72]. The fables and songs told him as a child by an invalid sister first turned the thoughts of the Bukovinian poet, Fedkovich, towards poetry. He was born in 1834, his mother being an unlearned peasant, full of superstition. These songs, heard as a child, he wove into music when serving in the army, and to the unknown poet, his sister, is really due part of his fame, she having inspired him by her fancy.
After living for some time in Czernowitz and Moldavia the boy of eighteen joined the Austrian army and seven years later was made an officer, taking part in the Italian wars of 1859, when the Austrians opposed the French. On his return to Bukovina Fedkovich found that his writings had a wide popularity, and he soon made the acquaintance of some well-known patriots who encouraged him to write in Ruthenian, for up till then he had been composing in German. In 1861 his first sixteen poems were printed in Ruthenian, and a year later a larger edition of his works was published. In 1872 he moved to Lemberg, but city life palled on him and he ended his days in the free country life of Bukovina, dying in 1888. His work is marked by great lyrical beauty.