So much interest has lately been awakened in, and centred round,
Folklore, that it needs no apology to lay before the British reader
additional information upon the subject. Interesting enough in
itself, it has been rendered doubly interesting by the rise and
progress of the new science of Comparative Mythology, which has
already yielded considerable results, and promises to yield results
of still greater magnitude, when all the data requisite for a full
and complete induction have been brought under the ken of the
inquirer. The stories of most European races have been laid under
contribution, but those of the Slavonians have, as yet, been only
partially examined. Circumstances have enabled me to make a
considerable addition to what is as yet known of Slavonic Folklore,
although I cannot make any pretence to having exhausted the mine,
or, rather, the many mines, which the various Slavonic races and
tribes possess, and which still, more or less, await the advent of
competent explorers.
In offering to the public a selection of sixty folklore stories
translated from exclusively Slavonic sources, it is but fitting to
give some account of the work from which I have derived them. In
1865, the late K. J. Erben, the celebrated Archivarius of the old
town of Prague, published a 'Citanka,' or reading-book, intended to
enable Bohemians to commence the study of all the numerous Slavonic
dialects, containing 'one hundred simple national tales and stories,
in their original dialects.' To this he appended a vocabulary, with
explanations of words and forms strange to, or divergent from, the
Bohemian, briefly given in the Bohemian language. This vocabulary is
divided into two parts, one illustrating the tales of those
Slavonians who make use of the Cyrillic characters, and belong to
the Orthodox Greek Church; and the other, those of the Catholic and
Protestant Slavonians, who employ alphabets founded on the Latin
characters of the West of Europe. Pan Erben paid special attention
to the preservation of the simple national forms of speech, as taken
down from the lips of the people; and, besides laying printed
collections under contribution, obtained several previously
unpublished stories.
Beginning with his native tongue, the Bohemian language, he passes
on to the closely-allied Moravian and Hungarian-Slovenish (Slovak)
dialects, and then takes the Upper and Lower Lusatian, the former of
which is related to the old Bohemian, while the latter inclines
rather to the Polish language. He next goes on to the Kashubian, a
rapidly-perishing sub-dialect of Polish, and then to the Polish
tongue itself.
Next comes the White Russian, forming a transition from Polish to
Great Russian, whereas the Little Russian in Galicia, the Ukraine,
and South Russia, is more nearly allied to the Bohemian than to the
White Russian. The ancient Russian language, which was also much
allied to the Old Bohemian, is the basis of the present written
Russian, and presents a transition to the Bulgarian, which, in the
north-west, melts into the Serbian, which again, in its Croatian
branch, near Varazdin, approaches most nearly to the Bohemian. The
Illyrian-Slovenish of Carinthia, though, in locality, least distant
from Bohemia, exhibits forms most removed from the Bohemian
language, just as the Upper Lusatian is less allied to the Bohemian
than is the locally-distant Kashubian.
I took up the book, originally, for the purpose for which it was
compiled, viz., that of obtaining an acquaintance with the main
features of all the Slavonic dialects, but found myself tempted, by
the extreme beauty of some of the stories, to translate the major
portion of them. That I do not present a still larger selection to
the reader is due to the fact that so many of the Great Russian
_skazkas_ have been so admirably translated, edited, and illustrated
by my friend--alas! that I must now term him my late friend--Mr.
W. R. S. Ralston, that I have scarcely considered them as coming
within the sphere of the present work.
For an essay on the singular mythical being, _Kurent_, occurring
only in the Serbian tales from Carniola, and as yet unnoticed in any
work on Slavonic mythology, I am indebted to Professor Gregor Krek,
of Grätz, in Styria. This will be found prefixed to the stories
which it illustrates.
I have also prefixed a short introduction, containing various
matters of interest, to each set of tales, as they follow each
other, according to their different languages, dialects, or
sub-dialects.
The table of contents immediately following will give a general view
of the stories and their respective sources, arranged under the
three heads of: (_a_) The Western Slavonians, (_b_) the Eastern
Slavonians, and (_c_) the Southern Slavonians.