Among the ballads on themes drawn from the New Testament, those relating to the birth of Christ, and the visit of the Wise Men; to John the Baptist, and to Lazarus, are the most numerous. The Three Wise Men sometimes bring queer gifts. One ballad represents them as being Lithuanians, and only two in number, who bring Christ offerings of botvínya—a savory and popular dish, in the form of a soup served cold, with ice, and composed of small beer brewed from sour, black, rye bread, slightly thickened with strained spinach, in which float cubes of fresh cucumber, the green tops of young onions, cold boiled fish, horseradish, bacon, sugar, shrimps, any cold vegetables on hand, and whatever else occurs to the cook. Joseph stands by the window, holding a bowl and a spoon, and stares at the gift. "Queer people, you Lithuanians," he remarks. "Christ doesn't eat botvínya. He eats only rolls with milk and honey (or rolls and butter)." In one case, the Three Wise Men appear as three buffaloes bringing gifts; in another as "the fine rain, the red sun, and the bright moon," showing that nature worship can assume a very fair semblance of Christianity.
Christ's baptism is sometimes represented by his mother bathing him in the river; and this is thought to stand for the weary sun which is bathed every night in the ocean. A "Legend of the Sun," whose counterpart can be found in other lands, represents the sun as being attended by flaming birds, who dip their wings in the ocean at night and sprinkle him, and by angels who carry his imperial robe and crown to the Lord's throne every night, and clothe him again in them every morning, while the cock proclaims the "resurrection of all things." In the Christmas carols, angels perform the same offices, and the flaming phoenix-birds are omitted.
The Apostle Peter's timid and disputatious character seems to be well understood by the people. One day, according to a ballad, he gets into a dispute with the Lord, as to which is the larger, heaven or earth. "The earth," declares St. Peter; "Heaven," maintains the Lord. "But let us not quarrel. Call down two or three angels to measure heaven and earth with a silken cord. So was it done; and lo! St. Peter was right, and the Lord was wrong! Heaven is the smaller, because it is all level, while the earth has hills and valleys!"
On another occasion, "all the saints were sitting at table, except the Holy Spirit." "Peter, Peter, my servant," says the Lord, "go bring the Holy Spirit." Peter has not traversed half the road, when he encounters a wondrous marvel, a fearful fire. He trembles with fear and turns back. "Why hast thou not brought the Holy Spirit?" inquires the Lord. Peter explains. "Ho, Peter, that is no marvel! that is the Holy Spirit. Thou shouldst have brought it hither and placed it on the table. All the saints would have rejoiced that the Holy Spirit sat before them!"
The Lazarus ballads illustrate how the people turn Scriptural characters into living realities, by incorporating their own observations on human nature with the sacred text. According to them, Lazarus and Dives were two brothers, both named Lazarus; the younger rich, the elder poor. Poor Lazarus begs alms of his brother: "How dare you call me brother?" retorts rich Lazarus. "I have brothers like myself—princes, nobles, wealthy merchants, who fare sumptuously and dress richly. Even the church dignitaries visit me. Your brethren are the fierce dogs which lie under my table and gather up the fragments. I fear not God, I will buy off intrusive death, I will attain to the kingdom of heaven; and if I attain not thereunto, I will buy it!" Thereupon, he sets the dogs on his brother, spits in his eye, locks the gates, and goes back to his feasting. The dogs which are set upon poor Lazarus bring him their food, instead of rending him. After three efforts to move his brother to compassion, poor Lazarus entreats the Lord to let him die: "Send sudden death, Lord, winged but not merciful," he prays. "Send two threatening angels; let them take out my unclean soul through my side with a hook, my little soul through my ribs, with a spear and with iron hooks; let them place my soul under their left wing, and carry it to the nethermost hell, to burning pitch and the river of fire. All my life have I suffered hunger and cold, and my whole body hath been full of pains. It is not for me, a poor cripple, to enter Paradise." (This is in accordance with the uncomfortable Russian belief that a man's rank and station in this life determine his fate in the other world.) But the Lord gives orders to have everything done in precisely the opposite way. Holy angels remove Lazarus's soul gently, through his "sugar mouth" (referring, possibly, to the Siberian belief that the soul is located in the windpipe) wrap it in a white cloth, and carry it to Abraham's bosom. After a while rich Lazarus is overtaken by misfortune and illness, and he, also, prays for speedy death, minutely specifying how his "large, clean soul," is to be handled and deposited in Abraham's bosom. He acknowledges that he has committed a few trivial sins, but mentions, with pride, in extenuation, that he has never worn anything but velvet and satin, and that he formerly possessed great store of "flowered garments." Again the Lord gives contrary orders, and rich Lazarus undergoes the treatment which his poor brother had indicated for his own soul. When rich Lazarus looks up from his torment and beholds poor Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, he addresses him as "Brother, my own brother." Here one version comes to a sudden end, and the collector who transcribed it, asked: "What?" "He repented," answered the peasant woman who sang it, "and called him 'brother' when he saw that he was well off." In other versions, a long conversation ensues, in the course of which poor Lazarus reminds rich Lazarus of numerous sins of omission and commission, and inquires, with great apparent solicitude, what has become of all his gold, silver, flowered garments, and so forth, and assures him that he would gladly give him not a drop but a whole bucketful of water were he permitted to do so.
But to the share of no saint does a greater number of songs (and festivals) fall than to that of John the Baptist. In addition to June 24th, which still bears the heathen name of Kupálo, in connection with St. John's Eve, and which is celebrated by the peasants in as thoroughly heathen a fashion as is the Christmas festival, in honor of the Sun-goddess, Kolyáda, he has three special days dedicated to him. Two of these deserve mention, because of a curious superstition attached to them. On St. John's Day, May 25th, the peasants set out their cabbages; but on the autumn St. John's Day, August 29th, they must carefully avoid all contact with cabbages, because it is the anniversary of the beheading of John; no knife must be taken in the hand on that day, and it is considered a great crime to cut anything, particularly anything round, resembling a head. If a cabbage be cut, blood will flow; if anything round be eaten—onions, for example—carbuncles will follow.
In concluding this brief sketch of the religious ballads of the Slavonians, I venture to quote at length, a masterpiece of the Wandering Cripples' art. It is a Montenegrin version of a legend which is common to all the Slavonic peoples, and contains, besides an interesting problem in ethics, an explanation of the present shape of the human foot. In some versions the emperor's crown is replaced, throughout, by "the bright sun," thus suggesting a mythological origin. It is called "The Emperor Diocletian and John the Baptist."
Two foster brothers were drinking wine,
On a sunny slope by the salt seaside;
One was the Emperor Diocletian,
The other, John the Baptist.
Then up spake John the Baptist
As they did drink the wine:
"Foster brother, come now, let us play.
Use thou thy crown; but I will take an apple."
Then up they jumped, began to play,
And St. John flung his apple.
Down in the depths of the sea it fell
And his warm tears trickled down.
But the emperor held this speech to him:
"Now weep not, dear my brother,
Only carry thou not my crown away
And I will fetch thy apple."
Then did John swear to him by God
That he would not steal the crown.
The emperor swam out into the sea,
But John flew up to heaven,
Presented himself before the Lord,
And held this speech to him:
"Eternal God, and All-Holy Father!
May I swear falsely by thee?
May I steal the emperor's crown?"
The Lord replied:
"O John, my faithful servant!
Thrice shalt thou swear falsely by me,
Only, by my name must thou not swear."
St. John flew back to the sunny slope,
And the emperor emerged from the sea.
Again they played; again John flung his apple;
Again it fell into the depths of the sea.
But Diocletian, the emperor, said to him:
"Now, fear thou not, dear brother,
Only carry thou my crown not away,
And I will fetch thy apple."
Then did John swear to him by God,
Thrice did he swear to him by God
That he would not steal his crown.
The emperor threw his crown under his cap,
Beside them left the bird of ill omen,
And plunged into the blue sea.
St. John froze over the sea,
With a twelve-fold ice-crust he froze it o'er,
Seized the golden crown, flew on high to heaven.
And the bird of ill omen began to caw.
The emperor, at the bottom of the sea, divined the cause,
Raced up, as for a wager,
Brake three of the ice-crusts with his head,
Then back turned he again, took a stone upon his head,
A little stone of three thousand pounds,
And brake the twelve-fold ice.
Then unfolded he his wings,
Set out in pursuit of John,
Caught up with him at the gate of heaven,
Seized him by his right foot,
And what he grasped, he tore away.
In tears came John before the Lord;
The bright sun brought he to heaven,
And John complained unto the Lord,
That the emperor had crippled him.
And the Lord said:
"Fear not, my faithful servant!
I will do the same to every man."
Such is the fact, and to God be the glory!
"Therefore," say the Servians, in conclusion of their version of this ballad, "God has made a hollow in the sole of every human being's foot."
The Epic Songs, properly speaking, are broadly divisible into three groups: the Cycle of Vladímir, or of Kíeff; that of Nóvgorod; and that of Moscow, or the Imperial Cycle, the whole being preceded by the songs of the elder heroes. With regard to the first two, and the Kíeff Cycle in particular, undoubtedly composed during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, authorities on the origin of Russian literature differ considerably. One authority maintains that, although the Russian epics possess a family likeness to the heroic legends of other Aryan races, the Russians forgot them, and later on, appropriated them again from Ural-Altaic sources, adding a few historical and geographical names, and psychical characteristics. But this view as to the wholesale appropriation of Oriental myths has not been established, and the authorities who combat it demonstrate that the heroes are thoroughly Russian, and that the pictures of manners and customs which they present are extremely valuable for their accuracy. They would seem, on the whole, to be a characteristic mixture of natural phenomena (nature myths), personified as gods, who became in course of time legendary heroes. Thus, Prince Vladímir, "the Fair Red Sun," may be the Sun-god, but he is also a historical personage, whatever may be said as to many of the other characters in the epic lays of the Vladímir cycle. "Sadkó, the rich Guest of Nóvgorod," also, in the song of that title, belonging to the Nóvgorod cycle, was a prominent citizen of Nóvgorod, who built a church in Nóvgorod, during the twelfth century, and is referred to in the Chronicles for a space of two hundred years. In fact, the Nóvgorod cycle contains less of the personified phenomena of nature than the cycle of the Elder Heroes, and the Kíeff cycle, and more of the genuine historical element.