torical person.

Among the Slavonic peoples corresponding sagas are told. In Servia and
Bulgaria King Marko is the enchanted hero. He is variously held to be in
a palace on some mysterious island, or in a mountain not far from the
Iron Gates. The traveller who crosses the mountain calls to him: "Marko,
dost thou live?" and in the echo he believes that Marko gives him a
reply. "Prince" Marko is also believed by the Serbs to be in the
mountain Urvina with his horse Sharatz, asleep. His sword is rising
slowly out of the mountain. When it is fully disclosed, Marko will awake
and deliver his people. If other accounts may be trusted, however, he
has retired to the Alps since the invention of gunpowder, and now lives
as a hermit in a cave. So great pity was it

"This villainous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth."[163]

The Carpathian hero is Dobocz, the robber chief. He is bespelled by a
jealous mistress in a cavern on the Czornahora, where he perpetually
counts the gold he has hidden. On certain days of the year he comes out
with his followers; and then he has often been seen by the mountaineers.
Sometimes he visits his wife in her rock-dwelling by Polansko, where she
too is enchanted; and on such occasions the nightly festivities may be
seen and heard. Bold are they who endeavour to penetrate the depths of
the mountain where Dobocz dwells. They never return, but are caught by
the robber and added to his band. Strengthened with these reinforcements
his companions will be with him when the charm shall one day be broken,
and he will issue forth to take vengeance on the men who betrayed him.
Some of the stories of Blanik Mountain, where Wenzel, the king of
Bohemia, lies, have been set before the reader. The horses of himself
and his followers stand ever ready saddled; and at midnight the mountain
opens, and the king and his knights ride forth to exercise upon the
plain. But other heroes than Wenzel dispute with him the honour of being
the enchanted inhabitant of the Blanik. One clear moonlight night of
spring the burgesses of Jung-Wositz were aroused from their slumbers by
the beating of drums, and the clang of armour, and the trampling of
horses. Terrified at such a rout, and not knowing what it might mean,
they seized their weapons and stood on the defensive. Nor were they a
little surprised to see on the open meadows a troop of horsemen engaged
in knightly play. By and by, at the sou