The third edition of Karadgitch’s work appeared in Vienna at intervals between the years 1841 and 1866. It had now grown to five volumes and contained 1112 lyric songs and 313 heroic ballads. It is from this edition that I have selected the hero-tales in this book; and if I should succeed in interesting a new generation of English readers in the literature of my country it will be my further ambition to attempt the immeasurably harder task of introducing them in a subsequent volume to our popular lyric poetry.
It remains only to tender my most grateful acknowledgment to my esteemed friend M. Chedo Miyatovich for his invaluable advice and encouragement, and for his generous willingness to contribute the preface which adorns my book.
[1] Tcheque is a better synonym for the solecism Bohemian.
[2] In Serbian Pepelyouga, where pepel, or—with vocalized l—pepeo, means ‘cinder’ or ‘ashes’; ouga being the idiomatic suffix corresponding to the Italian one or English ella, etc.
[3] See Servian Conversation Grammar, by Woislav M. Petrovitch, ed. Julius Groos, Heidelberg, 1914 (London: David Nutt, 212 Shaftesbury Avenue, W.C.), Introduction, pp. 1–8.