350 BALKAN BALLADS

shepherd works In the clearings of the forests on the Carpathian
ridges. Winter drives him to his hovel for shelter, but in spring
his soul is uplifted in unfettered freedom. The same experiences
affected the haiduk, lurking behind the leafage of the forest trees.
His sentiments are those of the shepherds. The two classes were
liable to clash (as in the ballad Fulga\ but the outlaw was hardly
more than an unfortunate shepherd, and the shepherd was looked
upon as a potential robber by the governors in the cities. In this
way the poems of shepherds and outlaws form but one mass, and
that is the largest in Rumanian balladry.

These things being premised concerning the essentials of
Rumanian folk-poetry, we may proceed to an account of its rise
and development.1 The lyrical genres, naturally, do not lie within
the corners of this argument. The narrative style was not available
to commemorate the feats of Stephen the Great (1457-1504), but
it was probably heard shortly afterwards in the court of the Serbian
wife of Neagoe Basarab (1512-21). It was by the munificence of
Neagoe and Despina that the exquisite monastery of Arges arose,
the gem of Rumanian architecture. Popular tradition has preferred
to attribute the building to Negru Voda, the founder of the
principality. As for the manner and circumstances, they have been
supposed to be those of the Greek Bridge of Arta, following one of
the Macedonian versions In which the name of the architect is
Manoli (who flourished about 1659). It is only under strict
reserves that we can include the ballad of Master Manole or The
Monastery of Arges among historical ballads. In the early years
of the seventeenth century the Yugoslav 'guslari' were welcomed in
the halls of Polish lords and by the Cossacks of the Ukraine, and
with them went Rumanian 'lautari', *qui valachica lingua patrium
carmen pleno gutture cantabant'. Their style was parodied in the
preface to Dosofteiu's Psalter in 1670, and a good many of
Neculce's anecdotes in the early eighteenth century seem derived
from ballads. The genre was established firmly, therefore, in the
seventeenth century, having taken its rise in the preceding one.

The first series of historical ballads extended down to the ruin
of Michael the Brave in 1601. In Boy Mihu (Alecsandri 23) he
goes singing through the wood, and his song attracts outlaws to
attack him. They are Hungarians and led by lanos, i.e. by John
Hunyadi. The hero is evidently borrowed from Yugoslav and
1 See Note Q, p. 392-