[409] Mijatovitch, from Serbian sources, p. 13.
[410] Ibid., pp. 16-17.
[411] The railway between Mitrovitza and Skoplje (before the Balkan War Uskub) passes through the plain of Kossova. When this railway is connected through the former Sandjak of Novi Bazar with the Austrian (?) railways in Bosnia, Kossovapol will be on one of the great transcontinental routes.
[412] The date June 15 is fixed by the Serbian chronicles and songs and by unbroken tradition. Also by Tvrtko’s letter to Florence. But Tvrtko, in another letter to the inhabitants of Trau in Dalmatia, gives June 20 (Pray, Annales, ii. 90). Seadeddin stands alone in placing the death of Murad on the 4th Ramazan (August 27). The other Ottoman historians, as well as Chalcocondylas, Ducas, and the anonymous Hist. Epirot., speak of these events occurring ‘in the springtime’.
[413] Chron. of Abbey of Tronosha, section 54, p. 84, and Chron. of Pek, p. 53: cited by Mijatovitch, p. 12 n.
‘Sans arrêter, pendant quinze jours pleins,
J’ai cheminé le long des hordes turques,
Sans en trouver ni la fin ni le nombre.’—A. d’Avril, p. 36.
[415] Orbini, pp. 314-15. See also the Serbian songs about Kossova, which are accessible in the form of a continuous narrative in French by Adolphe d’Avril, and in English by Mme Mijatovitch, based on the composite poems of Stoyan Novakovich and A. Pavich.
[416] Solakzadé, cited by Col. Djevad bey, p. 196. The bow was used as an offensive arm by the Osmanlis until the middle of Murad II’s reign.
[417] Seadeddin, i. 147-52; Chalc., I, p. 53; Ducas, 3, pp. 15-16; Hist. Epir., p. 234; the Serbian chants; Bonincontrius, col. 52; and the modern writers, Hertzberg, pp. 503-7; Jireček, pp. 342-4; Fessler, ii. 254; von Kállay, i. 166; Klaić, pp. 236-40. Most illuminating of all is Rački, in Croatian, in Jugoslav. Akademie, iii. 92 f.