Par extension a kletva (curse) can be effective even if pronounced, as in the above song, by other persons than those privileged.
Another saga narrates how a peasant greedily coveted and wished to appropriate a corn field that belonged to his neighbour and, in order to attain his evil end, he buried in the middle of that field his only son whom he had previously taught what to say when interrogated. The judge and the plaintiffs came with the defender to the spot and the mischievous peasant in order to mystify those present, exclaimed: "O black earth, speak of thy own free will, to whom dost thou rightly belong?"
"I belong to thee," the voice from below was heard.
The lawful owner, hearing this, started aback. And the judge's verdict appointed the field to belong to the covetous and wrong claimant. And the parties dispersed in wonder.
Then the father began to dig the ground in order to disinter his son. But—there was not the shadow of one! He called loudly and the child answered the call but the voice from beneath the earth was ever fainter and fainter. Finally the child turned to a mole.
Thus became, according to Serbian tradition, the first mole. (Edit.)
[3] Sir John Bowring, although a remarkable transversifier and at times a true interpreter of popular songs of the Slavs, has taken too much of that licentia poetica in his rendering of this, one of the most beautiful lyrics ever composed by Serbian peasant women. The reader may judge for himself, when comparing Sir John Bowring's liberal transversification with the following verbatim translation (which he, himself, felt absolutely indispensable to reproduce) what a great injustice is inflicted upon the popular songs of any people by even the most conscientious transversifier and how infinitely less untrue to the original a rendering can be. (Edit.)
Of this little poem, which Goethe calls "wonderful," the following is an almost literal translation:
Full of wine, white branches of the vine-trees To white Buda's fortress white had clung them: No! it was no vine-tree, white and pregnant! No! it was a pair of faithful lovers, From their early youth betrothed together. Now they are compell'd to part untimely. One address'd the other at their parting, "Go! my soul! burst out and leave my bosom! Thou wilt find a hedge-surrounded garden, And a red-rose branch within the garden; Pluck a rose from off the branch, and place it, Place it on thy heart, within thy bosom; Then behold!—ev'n as that rose is fading, Fades my heart within thy heart thou loved one!" And thus answer'd then the other lover: "Thou, my soul! turn back a few short paces. There thou wilt discern a verdant forest; In it is a fount of crystal water; In the fount there is a block of marble; On the marble block a golden goblet; In the goblet thou wilt find a snow-ball. Love! take out that snow-ball from the goblet, Lay it on thy heart within thy bosom; See it melt—and as it melts, my lov'd one! So my heart within thy heart is melting." (S. J. B.)
[4] This song has obviously been composed by a Serbian woman of Mohammedan faith. A large percentage of Serbians in Bosnia, Hercegovina and even Macedonia are still adhering to the Koran. Ali Bey surely must have been a Serbian bey. (Edit.)