376 RUSSIAN BALLADS

'byliny' profess to tell us tales of the Ukraine, which are almost
wholly unknown in that region. At most mere wisps of that tradi-
tion can be grasped. There is some vague memory of IFja
associated with place-names in the Ukraine. Zurilo or Dzurilo,
hero of a dancing song, is probably to be identified with Curilo
Plenkovic, and both with a family of boyars who took a prominent
part in the affairs of Przemysl, Cholm, Galicia, and Podolia from
the end of the fourteenth century to the beginning of the seven-
teenth (18). There is a game in dialogue in which mention is made
of a Prince Roman (12). This Roman may be the Galician prince
Roman Mstislavic of the early thirteenth century, who (if not
another) may have been the hero of the 'bylina5 of Prince Roman
and Mary the White Swan. But these are slight indications, and
they do not imply any real knowledge of the Kievite cycle in the
country round Kiev.

The fact is that the Ukraine suffered the worst shock of the
Tatar invasions, so destructive as to blot out nearly all memory of
the glorious past. Her folk-literature begins a new epoch with the
ruin of the capital in 1240. Unable to find a new centre of gravity,
the Ukraine did not recover until the Polish kings began to inter-
vene by reason of their forward policy in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. They brought with them the seeds of a definitely western
culture. Rhyme is a characteristic of most Ukrainian folk-songs,
even those of narrative cast. The lyrical element predominates,
as in Poland, and there are several narratives of an obviously
international type. Ukrainian metrics have some interesting
features, but none that mark them off from the general practice of
western Europe, outside the Mumi'. There are the usual love-songs
(boy and girl, man and wife, hate, betrayal, death and lonely sur-
vival). Other pieces follow the calendar of ceremonial occasions:
Christmas (koljadki), New Year (scedrivki), May Day (vesnjanki),
Easter (gaivki), Midsummer (kupal'ni pisni), Harvest (obzinkovi
pisni'), together with marriages and funerals. A conspicuous fea-
ture is the number of dance songs (kolomiiki, kozacki, sabadaski,
cabaraski), as in Poland. There are various lengths of line, from
octosyllables to sixteen-syllabled lines, but all this verse is subject
to measure and to rhyme, generally in couplets. Whatever elements
of narrative there may be, they are interrupted by refrains and by
repetitions and the movement is lyrical.

The 'dumi' alone stand out from the mass. They are normally