[1] This ballad is in all probability a remnant of the mythologic traces of a great prehistoric catastrophe, and it illustrates more than any other ancient memorial of the poetic Serbian people, the striking similarity in the beliefs of nations.
[2] This opening might perplex many readers if it were not explained that the commotion is not caused by the saints, but is due to the device, familiar to a Serbian audience, whereby the bard gives his ballad an effective start, and obtains the close attention of his peasant hearers.
[3] Divan means in Serbian any state gathering. In this passage it means the Supreme Judgment.
Chapter XIII: Three Serbian Ballads
I. The Building of Skadar (Scutari)[1]
The following poems are reprinted here from Sir John Bowring’s Servian Popular Poetry, London, 1827. These translations will serve to give to English readers some idea of the form of the national decasyllabic verse from which the matter of the greater part of this book is taken.