To the white grave where Jován lies buried,
The lad Jován, Jelitza's youngest brother;
Into him, my angels, breathe your spirit,
"Make for him a horse of his white grave-stone,
Knead a loaf from the black mould beneath him,
And the presents cut out from his grave-shroud;
Thus equip him for his promised visit."
The angels do as they are bidden. Jelitza receives her brother with delight, and asks of him a thousand questions, to which he gives evasive answers. After three days are past, he must away; but she insists on accompanying him home. Nothing can deter her. When they come to the church-yard, the lad Jován's home, he leaves her under a pretext and goes back into his grave. She waits long, and at last follows him. When she sees the nine fresh graves, a painful presentiment seizes her. She hurries to the house of her mother. When she knocks at the door, the aged mother, half distracted, thinks it is "the plague of the Lord," which, after having carried off her nine sons, comes for her. The mother and daughter die in each other's arms.[[335]]
This simple and affecting tale affords, then, the only instance, in Slavic popular poetry, of a regular apparition; but even here that apparition has, as our readers have seen, a character very different from that of a Scotch or German ghost. The same ballad exists also in modern Greek; although in a shape perhaps not equal in power and beauty to the Servian.[[336]][pg.331]