LUSATIA, POLAND 281

These proofs of Indebtedness should not blind us to the original
merits of the Sorb ballads. They are divided into significant
classes, which correspond with the round of peasant occupations.
So there are songs for the fields (psezpolna), apophthegms and
saws (roncka), dances (reje). Improvised rounds (wuzenenja),
marriage ditties (kwasne spjewy) and songs for begging (stonanje),
as well as religious legends (podkurlusje). The apophthegms give
maidens a chance to show their wit before the dancing starts; the
rounds enliven proceedings with personal allusions; one begs a
morsel when any one kills a pig or bakes a loaf. The field-songs are
sung when passing alon^ the fields from the townships to the
country, and their length is as the length of the road. There are
no historical cycles of ballads in a district which has had no
independent history, and no direct literary reminiscences. There
are religious ballads on Jacob and Rachel, Joseph's chastity, the
Samaritan Magdalene, St. George, St. Nicholas, and various moral
tales, generally such as occur also elsewhere. The bulk of the
collection consists of love-songs which cover the usual classes:
wooing and winning, seduction and remorse, the vigilance of
chaperons and warnings to girls, trickery, tests of affection, separa-
tion and reunion, desertion, opposition, tragic accidents, death, and
passionate crime. There is comparatively little of the goliardic and
anticlerical satire of the Low Countries and Rhine provinces, nor
is there a Newgate Calendar of vulgar crimes. Criminal ballads
are a well-known symptom of decadence, and their absence Is a
sign that the Sorbs have retained in their songs their pristine
Innocence.

Lying farther to the East, Poland Is a land rich in folk-songs, but
poor In true ballads. The ballads, Indeed, seem to be not so much
Polish as Galician, that is, they belong to the same Ruthenlan-
speaklng people as cultivate narrative oral poetry In the Ukraine, and
their evidence is used In forming Ukrainian anthologies also.1
Representatives of German ballad cycles appear In Polish In highly
lyrical forms. The lyrics, on the other hand,, flourish vigorously;
'they accompany our folk from the cradle to the grave*. They are
adapted to the main family events, such as betrothals, marriages,
christenings, and burials; they celebrate the red-letter days of the
calendar, as Easter, Midsummer's Day, and Christmas Eve (kol^dy)
and their language is the utterance of farmers, herders, huntsmen,

1 See Note K, p. 389.
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