She'll wash thy tattered shirt and comb and clean thee well!"

"When my shirt she washes,
Sprinkles it with ashes.

"When she puts it on to me,
Scolds so grim and bitterly!

"When she combs my head,
Runs the blood so red.

"When she braids my hair,
Pulls me here and there!"

"Go thee home, my babe, the Lord thy tears will dry!"
And the babe went home, laid her down to cry.

Laid her down to cry, one day only cried;
Groaned the second day, and the third day died.

From his heaven our Lord did two angels send,
With the poor babe they did to heaven ascend.

From the hell our Lord did two devils send;
They took the bad stepmother and down to hell they went.

Of all the surviving Slavic tribes, we have seen that the nationality
of the VENDES of Lusatia is most endangered. If formerly, as a race,
they suffered from persecution and oppression, they have now for
several centuries shared all the advantages of an enlightened
education and wise institutions with their German countrymen; and it
would therefore be erroneous to consider them still in the light of an
oppressed or subjugated nation. Although their language cannot be said
to be _favoured_ by the government, they have their schools, their
worship, their courts of justice, and, above all, their ballads,
without let or hinderance; and if nevertheless the statistics of each
year, especially in the plains of Lower Lusatia, show a diminution of
the Slavic speaking population, we must attribute it rather to the
natural and irresistible effect of time and circumstances, than to any
despotic or arbitrary measures of the government. The Vendish
villages are flourishing; the costumes of the peasants are heavy and
rich; and to their general welfare the _cheerful_ merry character of
their ballads seems to bear testimony. Their melodies resemble the
Bohemian, as much as their ballads do those of their neighbours; but
German melodies also are frequently heard among them, and many
translations of German popular ballads have become perfectly
naturalized. That the language of Upper Lusatia approaches very near
to the Bohemian, we have stated above. It is, however, much more
interspersed with German words; although not to such a degree as the
Lower Lusatian dialect.

Of all the Slavic popular ballads, we find in those of the Lusatians
least of that chaste feeling, which is in general characteristic of
Slavic love songs. The p