The question of their veracity is a far more interesting one than that of their antiquity.  Few of them narrate events previous to the invasion of Europe by the Turks in 1355, but some refer to facts coeval with the Mussulman empire in Adrianople.  More numerous are the records of the struggle between the Moslem and the Christian parties at a later period; and last of all, they represent the quiet and friendly intercourse between the two religions, if not blended in social affections, at least associated in constant communion. [0k]

The earliest poetry of the Servians has a heathenish character; [0l] that which follows is leagued with Christian legends.  But holy deeds are always made the condition of salvation.  The whole nation, to use the idea of Göthe, is imaged in poetical superstition.  Events are brought about by the agency of angels, but the footsteps of Satan can be nowhere traced;—the dead are often summoned from their tombs;—awful warnings, prophecies, and birds of evil omen, bear terror to the minds of the most courageous.

Over all is spread the influence of a remarkable and, no doubt, antique mythology.  An omnipresent spirit—airy and fanciful—making its dwelling in solitudes—and ruling over mountains and forests—a being called the Vila, is heard to issue its irresistible mandates, and pour forth its prophetic inspiration: sometimes in a form of female beauty—sometimes a wilder Diana—now a goddess gathering or dispersing the clouds, and now an owl among ruins and ivy.  The Vila, always capricious, and frequently malevolent, is a most important actor in all the popular poetry of Servia.  The Trica polonica is sacred to her.  She is equally renowned for the beauty of her person and the swiftness of her step:—“Fair as the mountain Vila,” is the highest compliment to a Servian lady—“Swift as the Vila,” is the most eloquent eulogium on a Servian steed.

Of the amatory poems of the Servians, Göthe justly remarks, that, when viewed all together, they cannot but be deemed of singular beauty; they exhibit the expressions of passionate, overflowing, and contented affection; they are full of shrewdness and spirit; delight and surprise are admirably pourtrayed; and there is, in all, a marvellous sagacity in subduing difficulties and in obtaining an end; a natural, but at the same time vigorous and energetic tone; sympathies and sensibilities, without wordy exaggeration, but which, notwithstanding, are decorated with poetical imagery and imaginative beauty; a correct picture of Servian life and manners,—everything, in short, which gives to passion the force of truth, and to external scenery the character of reality.

The poetry of Servia was wholly traditional, until within a very few years.  It had never found a pen to record it, but has been preserved by the people, and principally by those of the lower classes, who had been accustomed to listen and to sing these interesting compositions to the sound of a simple three-stringed instrument, called a Gusle; and it is mentioned by Göthe, that when some Servians who had visited Vienna were requested to write down the songs they had sung, they expressed the greatest surprise that such simple poetry and music as theirs should possess any interest for intelligent and cultivated minds.  They apprehended, they said, that the artless compositions of their country would be the subject of scorn or ridicule to those whose poetry was so polished and so sublime.  And this feeling must have been ministered to by the employment, even in Servia, of a language no longer spoken, for the productions of literature, though it is certain the natural affections, the everyday thoughts and associations could not find fit expression in the old church dialect:

            “The talk
Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk
Of the mind’s business, is the undoubted stalk
“True song” doth grow on.”

The collection of popular songs, Narodne srpske pjesme, from which most of those which occupy this volume are taken, was made by Vuk, and committed to paper either from early recollections, or from the repetition of Servian minstrels.  These, he informs us, and his statement is corroborated by every intelligent traveller, form a very small portion of the treasure of song which exists unrecorded among the peasantry.  How so much of beautiful anonymous poetry should have been created in so perfect a form, is a subject well worthy of inquiry.  Among a people who look to music and song as a source of enjoyment, the habit of improvisation grows up imperceptibly, and engages all the fertilities of imagination in its exercise.  The thought which first finds vent in a poetical form, if worth preservation, is polished and perfected as it passes from lip to lip, till it receives the stamp of popular approval, and becomes as it were a national possession.  There is no text-book, no authentic record, to which it can be referred, whose authority should interfere with its improvement.  The poetry of a people is a common inheritance, which one generation transfers sanctioned and amended to another.  Political adversity, too, strengthens the attachment of a nation to the records of its ancient prosperous days.  The harps may be hung on the willows for a while, during the storm and the struggle, but when the tumult is over, they will be strung again to repeat the old songs, and recall the time gone by.

The historical ballads, which are in lines composed of five trochaics, are always sung with the accompaniment of the Gusle.  At the end of every verse, the singer drops his voice, and mutters a short cadence.  The emphatic passages are chanted in a louder tone.  “I cannot describe,” says Wessely, “the pathos with which these songs are sometimes sung.  I have witnessed crowds surrounding a blind old singer, and every cheek was wet with tears—it was not the music, it was the words which affected them.”  As this simple instrument, the Gusle, is never used but to accompany the poetry of the Servians, and as it is difficult to find a Servian who does not play upon it, the universality of their popular ballads may be well imagined.

Independently of the measure of ten syllables, universally used in the ballads of the Servians, they have verses of seven syllables, consisting of two trochaics and one dactyl:

Wĭlt thoŭ lōve thy̆ Mīlĭtză?

Of eight syllables, consisting of four trochaics: as,

Hāstăn ōnwărd tō thě wēddĭng.

And of one trochaic between two dactyls: