Page:The Ballads of Marko Kraljević.djvu/230

 "He was of medium height," says a contemporary, "his face, with its high cheek-bones, looked curiously triangular and his small, deep-set, twinkling blue eyes were almost always downcast. He had bushy grey eyebrows and a huge moustache: he habitually wore high boots and a long black coat: his left leg was shorter than the right, for which reason he was unable to move about without a crutch: on his head he wore a large red fez which he very seldom removed."

Respected and honoured by the literary and scientific world as no Serbian had been before him, he lived long enough to see the complete victory of the reforms for which he had fought, and to the last he pursued his strenuous labours, in order, as he said, "to snatch something more from death."

Vuk died and was buried in Vienna in 1864, but thirty years later his remains were transferred to his native land and re-interred with great pomp near the west door of the cathedral in Belgrade.

There is no Serb to whom the name of Marko Kraljević is unfamiliar. I propose to mention here certain incidents in his career which, for the greater part, are not in the heroic ballads, but occur in tales and legends. Marko is reputed to have been much stronger than any man living, either then or now. In the 71st ballad of the 2nd book ("The Turks at Marko's Slava"), Marko's mace, which he swung and flung with one hand, is said to have weighed 66 okas.

As a boy I saw a painting of Marko in the hospice of the monastery at Krušedol in Syrmia. He was depicted carrying a full-grown ox by the tail. He had slung the animal over his shoulder and strode along without bending beneath the burden. In ballad No. 66 ("Marko Kraljević and Musa Kesedžija"), the story is told of how he took in his hand a piece of dry cornel-wood "from a rafter ten years old," and how when he crushed it in his grasp it broke "in two pieces and in three," and two drops of water came forth out of it. Marko could not go anywhere without ample provision of wine, but as his strength was great, so great was his power of drinking without getting drunk.

With regard to Šarac, some say that a Vila made Marko a present of him; others assert that Marko bought him from certain pack-horse drivers. They say he had made trial of many horses before Šarac, but