YUGOSLAVIA, BULGARIA	333
Death (Karadzic, ii, 83), which dates from the mid-fifteenth cen-
tury. The Turk Memed (Muhammad II) orders him to surrender
his horse, sword, and wife. He refuses, and a vast Turkish array
advances on his castle of Stake. For three years the Invaders ate
kept at bay. Then one day Lady Jelica sees that the waters of the
Morava are running muddy, and she infers that the Turks have
mined under the river. They descend to the cellar and see the first
Turks arriving. After a fruitless resistance Prijezda kills his horse,
shatters his sword, and leaps from his battlements into the river,
grasping his lady. Another way of accounting for the Serbian
losses has been the invention of an evil queen, namely, Jerina of
Smederevo. According to one ballad (Erlangen iS), failing to
seduce Damjan Sajnovic, she tricked him into killing his young
wife. So she destroyed good counsellors and good voivods in the
interest of a sultan to whom she had given her young sister in
marriage. Her brother was a would-be kidnapper, and Jerina
forced his hand on the fiancee of a better man, A third cause of
disaster were the quarrels of the Jaksici and other leaders, quarrels
which amply account for the fall of Belgrade.
Interesting figures in the background of these poems are the
Hungarians John Hunyadi and Matthias Corvinus (1458-90).
Already Marko Kraljevic has countered with ruthless actions the
'gabs' of the Magyar Philip (Karadzic, ii. 58), and the later Hun-
garians are treated as uncertain allies. "Jmko of Sibin' and
Matthias are regarded with sympathy, and there is a considerable
group of folk-songs which mention their capital of Buda with
admiration. The friendliness had some interruptions, as in the
rivalry which led up to Voivod Kaicas Death (Karadzic, ii. So).
On two occasions the Erlangen poems show John Hunyadi in the
moment of defeat. King Matijas (Erlangen 75) deals with his
elevation to the throne in a romantic manner; and according to The
King of Buda (Erlangen 73), Matthias was the only survivor of a
battle which may have been Mohacs (1526). He was not a king but
a 'servant', and he ran to tell the news of the Hungarian king's
death to the queen, who promptly married him. In a rather jolly
drinking-song, Matthias rebukes Peter of Varadin for his heavy
drinking, but Peter retorts that the wine of the tavern is worth all
Buda and Pesth:
Then retorted Pete the stroller, lord of Varadin;
'Stop your prating, King Matthias, our land's sovereign.