Tartar Captivity is a sketch preliminary to "With Fire and Sword." Though it appears as a fragment of a memoir, it is an original production written by Sienkiewicz in the style of the seventeenth century. Here the author uses for the first time the two main historical elements of Polish society: nobility and the Church. These two elements were raised to an ideal height in the Polish mind. Zdaniborski was a noble sincere and naïve, who considered the position and privileges of the nobility to be as sacred and inviolable as those of the Church; both he believed to be the direct product of God's will.
Mayors of the air, referred to in Chapter V., were men appointed to keep alive fires which would fill the air with a smoke disagreeable to the plague or pest, and prevent it, or rather her, from approaching. The plague or pest in the popular mind was represented as a female who went around killing people.
On the Bright Shore. All persons who have read "Children of the Soil" will remember Svirski, the sympathetic artist in that book; this same Svirski is the hero of the present narrative.
That Third Woman. In this narrative the only character needing explanation is, I believe, the minstrel. In Little Russia and the Ukraine the minstrel called "Kobzar," from kobza, the instrument on which he plays, and also "Did" (grandfather), because he is generally old and sometimes blind, is a prominent figure to this day. In centuries past he played a great part by rousing popular feeling and carrying intelligence from place to place. At present his rôle is to entertain people who wish to hear either what the minstrel himself improvises, or the ballads of that region. The Duma, or ballad of the Ukraine, is famous.
Let Us Follow Him was written somewhat earlier than "Quo Vadis," and was a tentative sketch in a new field, as was Tartar Captivity, which preceded "With Fire and Sword."
Footnotes
[ 1 ] Lord's daughter, or young lady.