A regular tonic versification forms one of the indispensable properties of these epic poems; irregularity of versification is a sign of decay, and a complete absence of measure, that is to say, the prose form, is the last stage of decay. The airs to which they are sung or chanted are very simple, consisting of but few tones, yet are extremely difficult to note down. The peasant bard modifies the one or two airs to which he chants his lays with astonishing skill, according to the testimony of Rýbnikoff, who made the first large collection of the songs, in the Olónetz government (1859), and Hilferding, who made a still more surprising collection (1870), to the north and east of Olónetz.
The lay of Sadkó, above mentioned, is perhaps the most famous—the one most frequently alluded to in Russian literature and art. Sadkó was a harper of "Lord Nóvgorod the Great." "No golden treasures did he possess. He went about to the magnificent feasts of the merchants and nobles, and made all merry with his playing." Once, for three days in succession, he was bidden to no worshipful feast, and in his sorrow he went and played all day long, upon the shore of Lake Ílmen. On the third day, the Water King appears to him, and thanks him for entertaining his guests in the depths. He directs Sadkó to return to Nóvgorod, and on the morrow, when he shall be bidden to a feast, and the banqueters begin the characteristic brags of their possessions, Sadkó must wager his "turbulent head" against the merchants' shop in the bazaar, with all the precious wares therein, that Lake Ílmen contains fishes with fins of gold. Sadkó wins the bet; for the Tzar Vodyanóy sends up the fish to be caught in the silken net. Thus did Sadkó become a rich guest (merchant of the first class) of Nóvgorod, built himself a palace of white stone, wondrously adorned, and became exceeding rich. He also held worshipful feasts, and out-bragged the braggers, declaring that he would buy all the wares in Nóvgorod, or forfeit thirty thousand in money. As he continues to buy, wares continue to flow into this Venice of the North, and Sadkó decides that it is the part of wisdom to pay his thirty thousand. He then builds "thirty dark red ships and three," of the dragon type, lades them with the wares of Nóvgorod, and sails out into the open sea, via the river Vólkhoff, Lake Ládoga, and the Nevá. After a while the ships stand still and will not stir, though the waves dash and the breeze whistles through the sails. Sadkó arrives at the conclusion that the Sea King demands tribute, as they have now been sailing the seas for twelve years, and have paid none. They cast into the waves casks of red gold, pure silver, and fair round pearls; but still the ships move not. Sadkó then proposes that each man on board shall prepare for himself a lot, and cast it into the sea, and the man whose lot sinks shall consider himself the sacrifice which the Sea King requires. Sadkó's lot persists in sinking, whether he makes it of hop-flowers or of blue damaskeened steel, four hundred pounds in weight; and all the other lots swim, whether heavy or light. Accordingly Sadkó perceives that he is the destined victim, and taking his harp, a holy image of St. Nicholas (the patron of travelers), and bowls of precious things with him, he has himself abandoned on an oaken plank, while his ships sailed off, and "flew as they had been black ravens." He sinks to the bottom, and finds himself in the palace of the Sea King, who makes him play, while he, the fair sea-maidens, and the other sea-folk dance violently. But the Tzarítza warns Sadkó to break his harp, for it is the waves dancing on the shore, and creating terrible havoc. The Tzar Morskóy then requests Sadkó to select a wife; and guided again by the Tzarítza's advice, Sadkó selects the last of the nine hundred maidens who file before him—a small, black-visaged maiden, named Tchernáva. Had he chosen otherwise, he is told, he would never again behold "the white world," but must "forever abide in the blue sea." After a great feast which the Sea King makes for him, Sadkó falls into a heavy sleep, and when he awakens from it, he finds himself on the bank of the Tchernáva River, and sees his dark red ships come speeding up the Vólkhoff River. Sadkó returns to his palace and his young wife, builds two churches, and roams no more, but thereafter takes his ease in his own town.
Between these cycles of epic songs and the Moscow, or Imperial Cycle there is a great gap. The pre-Tatár period is not represented, and the cycle proper begins with Iván the Terrible, and ends with the reign of Peter the Great. Epic marvels are not wholly lacking in the Moscow cycle, evidently copied from the earlier cycles. But these songs are inferior in force. Fantastic as are some of the adventures in these songs, there is always a solid historical foundation. Iván the Terrible, for instance, is credited with many deeds of his grandfather (his father being ignored), and is always represented in rather a favorable light. The conquest of Siberia, the capture of Kazán and Ástrakhan, the wars against Poland, and the Tatárs of Crimea, and so forth, are the principal points around which these songs are grouped. But the Peter the Great of the epics bears only a faint resemblance to the real Peter.
Perhaps the most famous hero of epic song in the seventeenth century is the bandit-chief of the Volga, Sténka Rázin, whose memory still lingers among the peasants of those regions. He was regarded as the champion of the people against the oppression of the nobles, and "Ilyá of Múrom, the Old Kazák" is represented as the captain of the brigands under him. To Sténka, also, are attributed magic powers. From the same period date also the two most popular dance-songs of the present day—the "Kamarýnskaya" and "Bárynya Sudárynya," its sequel. The Kamarýnskaya was the district which then constituted the Ukraína, or border-marches, situated about where the government of Orél now is. The two songs present a valuable historical picture of the coarse manners of the period on that lawless frontier; hence, only a few of the lines which still subsist of these poetical chronicles can be used to the irresistibly dashing music.
The power of composing epic songs has been supposed to have gradually died out, almost ceasing with the reign of Peter the Great, wholly ceasing with the war of 1812. But very recently an interesting experiment has been begun, based on the discovery of several new songs about the Emperor Alexander II., which are sung by the peasants over a wide range of country. All these songs are being written down with the greatest accuracy as to the peculiarities of pronunciation and accentuation. If, in the future, variants make their appearance, containing an increasing infusion of the artistic and poetical elements, considerable light will be thrown upon the problem of the rise and growth of the ancient epic songs, and on the question of poetical inspiration among the peasants of the present epoch. One of these ballads, written down in the Province of the Don, from the lips of a blind beggar, says that Alexander II., "burned with love, wished to give freedom to all, kept all under his wing, and freed them from punishment. He reformed all the laws, heard the groans of the needy, and himself hastened to their aid." "So the wicked killed him," says the ballad, and proceeds to describe the occurrence, including the way in which "the black flag" was lowered on the palace, and "they sent a telegram about the eclipse of our sun." In the far northern government of Kostromá, on the Volga, two more ballads on the same subject have been taken down on the typewriter, so that the bard could readily correct them. The first, entitled "A Lay of Mourning for the Death of the Tzar Liberator," narrates how "a dreadful cloud of black, bloodthirsty ravens assembled, and invited to them the underground, subterranean rats, not to a feast-ball, not to a christening, but to undermine the roots of the olive-branch." Naturally this style demands that the emperor be designated as "the bright falcon, light winged, swift eyed." It describes the plot, and how the bombs were to be wrapped up in white cloths, and the conspirators were "to go for a stroll, as with watermelons." When the bombs burst, "the panes in the neighboring houses are shattered," and "the dark blue feathers" of the "bright falcon" are set on fire. "As there were no Kostromá peasants on hand to aid the emperor—no Komisároffs or Susánins," adds the ballad, with local pride (alluding to the legend of Iván Susánin saving the first Románoff Tzar from the Poles in 1612, which forms the subject of the famous opera by Glínka, "Life for the Tzar"), "he laid himself down in the bosom of his mother (earth)." The second ballad is "The Monument-Not Made-with-Hands to the Tzar Liberator"—the compound adjective here referring to that in the title of a favorite ikóna, or Holy Picture, which corresponds to the one known in western Europe as the imprint of the Saviour's face on St. Veronica's kerchief. There are four stanzas, of six lines each, of which the third runs as follows:
He is our Liberator and our father!
And we will erect a monument of hearts
Whose cross, by its gleaming 'mid the clouds,
Shall transmit the memory to young children and the babes in arms,
And this shall be unto ages of ages
So long as the world and man shall exist!
In southwestern Russia, where the ancient epic songs of the Elder Heroes and the Kíeff Cycle originated, the memory of them has died out, owing to the devastation of southern Russia by the Tatárs in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the decay of its civilization under Lithuanian sway in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the sixteenth century the population of southern Russia reorganized itself in the forms of kazák communes, and fabricated for itself a fresh cycle of epic legends, which replaced those of Kíeff; and there the kobzárs (professional minstrels who accompany their songs on the kábza, a mandolin-like, twelve-stringed instrument) celebrate the deeds of a new race of kazák heroes. But in the lonely wildernesses of the northeast, whither the Tatár invasion drove the descendants of those who composed and sang the great epic songs, no more recent upheavals have brought forward heroes to replace the historic paladins, who there hold undisputed sway to the present time.
Of the songs still sung by the people, the following favorite (in the version from the Olónetz government) may serve as a sample. It is not rhymed in the original.
Akh! Little guelder-rose, with pinkish azure bloom,
And merry little company, where my dear one doth drink;
My darling will not drink, until for me he sends.
When I, a maiden, very young did dally,
Tending the ducks, the geese, the swans,
When I, a young maid, very young, along the stream-bank strolled,
I trampled down all sickly leaves and grass,
I plucked the tiny azure flowerets,
At the swift little rivulet I gazed;
Small was the hamlet there, four cots in all,
In every cot four windows small.
In every little window, a dear young crony sits.
Eh, cronies dear, you darlings, friends of mine,
Be ye my cronies, one another love, love me,
When into the garden green ye go, then take me, too;
When each a wreath ye twine, twine one for me;
When in the Danube's stream ye fling them, drop mine, too;
The garlands all upon the surface float, mine only hath sunk down.
All your dear lover-friends have homeward come, mine only cometh not.