YUGOSLAVIA, BULGARIA 337

tradition. A sinner whose sins excite the sea to a storm in the
Erlangen manuscript (190) was doubtless one of Jonah's kinsmen,
a cousin of the Russian Sadko and the Scottish Brown Robin
(Child 57).

St. Helen is probably the heroine of Faliena's Boasts (Erlangen
42). She boasts that she will accomplish some remarkable feats of
magic; so that the tsar sends for her and marries her. Constantine
the Great is not in high favour. We are told that he tried to
murder a deacon who had imposed a heavy penance, and fire from
heaven came and destroyed all but his hand, which had done some
deeds of kindness; he was also a destroyer of churches, only to be
restrained by the apparition of three great saints. These are
Michael, Nicholas, and Elijah-—a typically eastern group. A very
remarkable ballad is entitled Diocletian and John the Baptist
(Duric, i. 8). Diocletian or Duklijan and St. John play a game for
which the stakes are an apple and a crown, and the saint loses. He
flies to heaven to get permission to swear one false oath; and armed
with this permission he returns to his game. He contrives to induce
Duklijan to dive for the apple, \vhile he himself steals the crown.
He freezes the sea and flies heavenward, but a "cursed bird' nips his
foot as he goes in:

Weeping sorely, John approached Ms Maker,
bright the sunshine he restored to heaven.
deep compassion felt God for the Baptists
for the insult foul the tsar had done him.
Then the Lord God words of comfort uttered:
'Never fear thou, good and faithful servant!
Even measure shall I give to others.'
So it happened: to our God be glory.

There are also ethical ballads which reprove unpopular vices.
Sons who expel their mother from home are turned to stone; the
archangel reproves Stepan Dusan's pride; a church grows from
innocent bones; lightning strikes a Bulgar who has transgressed
the law of foster-brotherhood. This relationship is held more
binding than kinship. In The Foundling Simeon (Duric, i. 17) we
have a variant of the Oedipus story, taken from oral tradition.
Mocked by his playmates, the foundling goes to Buda and there
wins the love of the queen; but he comes to know she is his mother,
and ends his life with a long penance of snakes and water.

The great bulk of the 'junacke pesme* consists of realistic

4*615 XX