340 BALKAN BALLADS

such as the first meeting and the incidents of courtship. In
A Lover's Wreath (Karadzic, i. 334) we learn merely that a girl
gave her wreath to a boy, and he went to arrange the wedding.
There are some interesting tests for lovers: a contest of reaping,
swimming a river, or a mountain scramble (Karadzic, i. 252, 738,
730). The Yugoslav form of the ballad which shows how much
better is kind than kin is entitled Pavle Zecanin (Karadzic, i. 289).
Pavle finds a Turkish woman's pearl necklace and hides it in his
bosom. He returns home and says there is a snake there. His
family refuse one by one to take it out, and only his fiancee dares.
One young man goes through the well-known diving test, and
another has to get things that are impossible. In Sister tests Brother
(Karadzic, i. 301) the sister asks to be ransomed from the Turks;
when she is refused she says (to our surprise) that she is a queen.
Then there is the girl who sends falcons to three kings and picks
the lover whose answer is most ardent; this ballad has also drifted
into the Marko Kraljevic cycle.

In ballads of seduction the characters often bear Moslem names.
One of the most favoured motifs (Erlangen 55, 130, 191) is that of
the young nobleman or prince who falls sick for love; various ladies
visit him, but he is not cured until the lady of his choice comes.
He seizes her, and kisses her for three days and nights. There are
two denouements. In one the lady outwits the trickster and forces
him to marry her. In the other there is an aggrieved husband,
Ali Pasha, who complains to the prince's father:

*God be with thee, good my lord the Sultan,

still thou sendest not my lady pasha,

one who seemeth like a quail for beauty.'

But the Sultan this reply inditeth:

* Cease thy folly, good my lord the Pasha,

and thy seeking this thy quail for beauty

now enarmed by my grey-green falcon.'

A clever woman finds means of evading the dishonest proposals of
her brother-in-law, and a bride contrives to kill the escort who
would take advantage of her on her bridal journey (Karadzic, i.
743). As for ballads of adultery, the most fortunate has been
Asanaginica (Erlangen 6). There are several versions of this piece.
One came to the notice of the great Goethe, and passed from him
to the hands of Sir Walter Scott, In this way it played an im-
portant part in the diffusion of the fame of 'Morlacbian' balladry.