342 BALKAN BALLADS

in the imaginative ballad of Mihail Potyk and his faithless super-
natural bride, the white swan Marja Lebedaja. As for passionate
crime and incest, the usual types are current: murders for jealousy,
unnatural motherhood, poisoning, incestuous proposals, and the
like. In The King and Queen of Buda (Karadzic, i. 615) we have
the motif of the Curioso impertinente. Wishing to know which of
her three husbands the queen has loved best, he learns that he is
not only the last but the worst.

The tragedies of love are so numerous that they can only be
indicated generically; Trouble arises from the opposition of
parents or the intervention of powerful rivals. The simplest,
naivest tableau is that of the youth who is forced into a hateful
marriage, so that he dies and his girl with him (Omer and Merjem,
Erlangen 65). Another is hanged, another decapitated; the fiancee
follows with the same death. In Latin Andro and maid Marica
(Erlangen 56) the scene is rather more original. When Andro died
Marica's grief was so deep that she put off her suitors for years.
Even when she had at last consented to be remarried, she could
not pass Andro's grave without a sigh; which roused the disgust
of her new husband so that he killed her on the spot. The true
lovers5 hands met beneath the mould and a green apple was in
them; from Marica grew a rose and from Andro's side flowed cool
waters. The 'maumariee3 theme also is well known in Serbian
balladry.

A remarkable version of the theme, originally perhaps French, of
the girl who feigned death to save her honour, or at least an unwel-
come suitor, is entitled Hercegovinian Stepan (Karadzic i. 727, 728).
It is the ruthlessness of the tests, which are like those of Young
Radoica, that distinguishes this ballad from its western congeners,
but link it to the Czech piece previously mentioned. Neither fire,
serpent, nor tickling with a moustache can make the pretended dead
girl quiver. As a sign of its provenience one may note that in other
ballads Hercegovinian Stepan is said to be a Latin. There are also
several more playful ballads of baffled suitors, in which a youth
tries to waylay a girl, but she rides off unharmed. One girl dresses
like a newly wedded woman, another like her brother, another
like a young prince and demands the ravisher's services in her
retinue. Marko Kraljevic, Todor of Pomorje, and Stojan Jankovic
were named as heroes of the adventure of the warrior's home-
coming, and there are comparatively slight differences in the telling.