Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/472

466 had in view when speaking of the matrimonial customs of the Polians.

The testimony of our oldest chronicle concerning the different forms of matrimony among the eastern Slavs deserves our closest attention, because it is, in all points, confirmed by the study of the rest of our old written literature, of our epic poems, of our wedding-songs, and of the matrimonial usages and customs still, or lately, in existence in certain remote districts of Russia. The Drevlians are not the only Slavonic tribe to which the mediæval chronicles ascribe a low state of morality. The same is asserted of the old Bohemians or Czechs, in the account given of their manners and customs by Cosmus of Prague, a Latin annalist of the eleventh century, who says: .”

This statement is directly confirmed by that of another mediæval author, the unknown biographer of St. Adalbert. This writer ascribes the animosity of the Bohemian people towards the saint to the fact of his strong opposition to the shameful promiscuousness which in his time prevailed in Bohemia. It is confirmed, also, by the monk of the Russian Abbey of Eleasar, known by the name of Pamphil, who lived in the sixteenth century. Both speak of the existence of certain yearly festivals at which great licence prevailed. According to the last-named author, such meetings were regularly held on the borders of the State of Novgorod on the banks of rivers, resembling, in that particular, the annual festivals mentioned by Nestor. Not later than the beginning of the sixteenth century, they were complained of by the clergy of the State of Pscov. It was at that time monk Pamphil drew up his letter to the Governor of the State, admonishing him to put an end to these annual gatherings, since their only result was the corruption of the young women and girls. According to the author just cited, the meetings took place, as a rule,