Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/375

Rh The form of the repetition is identical with that of the Slavonic texts. Certain parallels with Moravian variants are shown. This is known throughout Germany and in Silesia. It is a forfeit game starting with pictures. It occurs also in isolated modified forms in German. I would add to what the writer points out that kindebank in the case collected by Smólski would very conveniently fit the case of the Hobelbank in the fisherman's wedding dialogue at Hela peninsula, Danzig.

II. Song: "Teče voda od Tábora." The text is quoted from Erben, and his explanation of the well-known erotic significance of the apple is given. Erben gave no variants, although he had seven texts. That they came from the same two districts (N.E. Bohemia) does not much lessen the curiosity of the point. The greatly increased modern facilities still show that this is, according to M. Horák, a hapax legomenon in Bohemian and Slavonic popular poetry.

The ballad can be divided into two parts, the first, strophe 1–5, being of the nature of a lyrico-epic song, and the rest is of different character. The first part (1-5) corresponds in substance to a folksong in Erben: strophe 1-3 are practically unchanged, and the 4th and 5th strophe agree in the song much more conveniently with the framework of the ist to 3rd than in the ballad. The song has many variants. It even found its way into Poland. In this latter case the apple which reaches the loved one's window is the lover himself, and it ends with a dialogue of the lovers.

The second part of the ballad is quite independent, strophes 6 and 7 being a fresh beginning. Zíbrt actually gives "Byl Myslivec na Táboře" as an independent text. The ending is obscure and disquieting. This second part may be said to consist of the same action in substance as the first part, and a lyrical song with its simple construction overweighted with what are non-popular, literary elements. The punctuation is modern and may have been due to Erben; but this is not all, the whole style is modern in the phrase "the night is close, the hart flees and the earth shakes beneath him," for instance.

His conclusion reduces the evidence for the whole ballad to one or at most two contributors, and finally shows that this is a