Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/253

Rh rise again and the custom was stopped. [Szpski Krijiževni Glasnik (Serbian Literary Review) vol. xvi., 1906, 774.]

In East Serbia the people say for a very old man: "He is prepared for the axe," or "He is ready for the axe," which means " He is not for this world," but this is only fun.

Concerning the funeral games of the Serbian people I know very little. In the Middle Ages there were many public games in Serbian Lands. Near many old Serbian cities there are now places with the names which are derived from the games: in Belgrad, Tzkalište (from tzčati=to run) i.e. foot-race, horse-race; near the old Serbian city of Ravno in East Serbia (now in ruins) is the village Potzkanje which means the same as Tzkalište; near the old Serbian city of Bovan, between Aleksinatz and Soko Banja (now in ruins too) is a small plain which bears the name Tikanje with the same meaning and so on. But whether these names are in any relation with the public funeral games I do not know. But in Serbian popular tradition I have found some traces of them, viz., in a Serbian popular song.

One song has the title "Ženidba Milic Barjaktara" (The marriage of Milić the Ensign-bearer) in the "Collection of Serbian popular songs," collected nearly a hundred years ago by Vuk S. Kazadžić (vol. iii.). The song runs:

"Milič Ensign-bearer collected the wedding party from all Bosnia and Herzegovina and went to Zagorje on the Adriatic coast to celebrate his betrothal to the beautiful Leposava, the daughter of Vid Mariěić. Leposava was so beautiful that when Milič saw her he asked her mother: 'From where did you get your beautiful daughter, did you make her of gold, did you shape her of silver, did you rob her from the sun, or did you bear her?' Then her mother began to cry and said to him: 'I have neither made her of gold, nor have I shaped her of silver, nor have I stolen her from the sun, but I bore her. I had eight such girls and all eight I have betrothed, but none of them lived to reach