Slavic
popular poetry has yet no history. Not that a considerable portion of
it is not very ancient. Many mysterious sounds, even from the gray
ages of paganism, reach us, like the chimes of distant bells,
unconnected and half lost in the air; while, of many other songs and
legends, the colouring reminds us strongly of their Asiatic home. But
the wonderful tales they convey, have mostly been only confined to
tradition; especially there, where the fountain of poetry streamed;
and streams still, in the richest profusion, namely, in Servia. Handed
down from generation to generation, each has impressed its mark upon
them. Tradition, that wonderful offspring of reality and imagination,
affords no safer basis to the history of poetry, than to the history
of nations themselves. To dig out of dust and rubbish a few fragments
of manuscripts, which enable us to cast one glance into the night of
the past, has been reserved only for recent times. Future years will
furnish richer materials; and to the inquirer, who shall resume this
subject fifty years after us, it may be permitted to reduce them to
historical order; while we must be contented to appreciate those,
which are before our eyes, in a moral and poetical respect.

The Slavi, even when first mentioned in history, appear as a singing
race. Procopius, relating the surprise of a Slavic camp by the Greeks,
states that the former were not aware of the danger, having lulled
themselves to sleep by singing.[2] Karamzin, in his history of the
Russian empire, narrates, on the authority of Byzantine writers, that
the Greeks being at war with the Avars, about A.D. 590, took prisoners
three Slavi, who were sent from the Baltic as ambassadors to the Khan
of the Avars. These envoys carried, instead of weapons, a kind of
guitar. They stated, that, having no iron in their country, they did
not know how to manage swords and spears; and described singing and
playing on the guitar as one of the principal occupations of their
peaceful life.[3] The general prevalence of a musical ear and taste
among all Slavic nations is indeed striking. "Where a Slavic woman
is," says Schaffarik, "there is also song. House and yard, mountain
and valley, meadow and forest, garden and vineyard, she fills them all
with the sounds of her voice. Often, after a wearisome day spent in
heat and sweat, hunger and thirst, she animates, on her way home, the
silence of the evening twilight with her melodious songs. What
s