Richard James, a graduate of Oxford, had been sent to Russia to look after the spiritual welfare of the young Englishmen who were connected with the Merchant Company. He arrived in Moscow on January 19, 1619, and started back by the way of Arkhángelsk on August 20 of the same year. Having been shipwrecked, he was compelled to pass the winter in Kholmogóry, from which place he left for England the next spring. He took with him a copy of six songs that some Russian had written out for him: they are now deposited in the Bodleian Library. These songs are interesting as being the oldest folksongs collected in Russia, and as having been composed immediately after the events which they describe.
The Song of the Princess Kséniya Borísovna is given in W. R. Morfill’s Story of Russia, New York and London, 1890.
INCURSION OF THE CRIMEAN TARTARS[116]
Not a mighty cloud has covered the sky,
Nor mighty thunders have thundered:
Whither travels the dog, Crimea’s tsar?—
To the mighty tsarate of Muscovy.
“To-day we will go against stone-built Moscow,
But coming back, we will take Ryazán.”
And when they were at the river Oká,