Bulgarian. Dozon, Chansons p. bulgares, p. 130, No 7, p. 319. Kačanovskij, p. 120, No 48; Krek as above, p. 653 f., No 10, ‘Lazar and Yovana.’ Miladinof, 1861, 1891, p. 145, No 100, ‘Lazar and Petkana;’ Krek, p. 653, No 9. Miladinof, p. 317, No 200, ‘Elin Doika;’ Rosen, Bulgarische Volksdichtungen, p. 247, No 103. ‘Elin Doina,’ Popov, in Periodičesko Spisanie, II, 162, lacks the last half; Krek, p. 654, No 11. ‘Yana,’ Miladinof, p. 339, No 229, Rosen, p. 116, No 32, diverges considerably from the others.
Romaic. Twenty copies, including all previously published, Polites, in Δελτίον τῆς ἱστορ. κ. ἐθνολ. ἑταιρ. τ. Ἑλλάδος, II, 193-261, 552-57, 1885-87. Kanellakes, Χιαχὰ Ἀνάλεκτα, p. 37, No 27, p. 58, No 49, 1890. Ζωγραφεῖος Ἀγών, I, 308, No 30, 397, No 17, 1891. ‘Constantine and Arete’ (mostly). C. B. Sheridan, The Songs of Greece, p. 207; C. C. Felton, in English and Scottish Ballads, Boston, 1860, I, 307; Lucy M. J. Garnett, Greek Folk-Songs, etc., 1885, p. 126.
Albanian. (‘Garentina,’ = Arete.) De Rada, Rapsodie, etc., p. 29 (I, xvii); Dozon, Ch. p. bulgares, p. 327, De Grazia, C. p. albanesi, p. 138. Camarda, Appendice al Saggio, etc., p. 98 (fragment, last half), p. 102. Dora d’ Istria, Revue des Deux Mondes, LXIII, 407. La Calabria, II, 55, 1890.—Tale, Metkos, Ἀλβανικὴ Μέλισσα, p. 189, No 12, translated in Dozon, Contes albanais, p. 251.[58]
A mother has nine sons and an only daughter. The daughter is sought in marriage; the mother and eight of her sons wish to match her in their neighborhood, but the youngest son (whom it will be convenient to call Constantine) has his way, and she is given to a suitor from a distant country (often Babylon). The brothers are to visit their sister often (Slavic); Constantine promises to bring her to his mother should there be special occasion. A fatal year comes, and all the brothers die of the plague (in a few cases they are killed in war). The mother chants laments at the graves of the eight, strews flowers, burns candles, gives alms for their souls; at Constantine’s grave she tears her hair. She curses Constantine for the distant marriage, and demands of him her daughter. God takes pity (on mother, sister, or son). The stone over his grave (his coffin, a board for the grave, his shroud, a cloud) is turned into a horse; he goes to his sister and informs her that she is wanted by her mother. The sister will put on gold for joy or black for grief; she is to come as she stands. (He tries to prevent her going, in the Servian copies, where his object is to pay the promised visit.) On the way the sister notes that Constantine is gray with mould, he smells of earth, his skin is black, his eyes are dull, his hair is dusty, his hair or teeth fallen out; why is this? He has been at work in the ground, has been building nine white houses, there has been dust, wind, and rain on the road, he has had long watches, sore sickness. He smells of incense, too; that is because he has been at church lately. Birds call out in human voice as they pass, What wonder is this, the living travelling with the dead! (Thrice in Romaic, 9, 10, and the Albanian tale, twice in Romaic 13.) The sister asks Constantine if he hears what the birds are saying; he hears, they are birds, let them talk. They near their mother’s house; a church is hard by. Constantine bids his sister go on; he must say a prayer in the church, or pay a votive candle, find a ring which he lost there, see to his horse; he disappears. The house is locked, the windows shut, there is every sign of desolation and neglect. The daughter knocks; the mother, from within, cries, Avaunt, Death! I have no more children! The daughter cries, It is I.[59] Who brought you? Constantine. Constantine is dead; (has been dead three days, forty days, five months, twelve years!) The mother opens, they die in a mutual embrace (the mother dies, one dies within, one without).
‘Le Frère de Lait,’ Villemarqué, Barzaz Breiz, No 22, p. 163, ed. 1867, has no claim to be associated with these ballads, the only feature in which it has similarity not being genuine. Compare ‘La Femme aux deux Maris,’ Luzel, Gwerziou Breiz-Izel, I, 266-71, two versions, and II, 165-69, two more; and see Luzel, De l’authenticité des chants du Barzaz-Breiz, p. 39.
1
A wonder stranger ne’r was known
Then what I now shall treat upon.
In Suffolk there did lately dwell
A farmer rich and known full well.