Page:The Ballads of Marko Kraljević.djvu/41

 of a sportsman. When the crafty damsel outwitted him and made him feel particularly foolish, Marko, after a moment of pardonable fury, bursts into a loud laugh at his own discomfiture. When he receives the message from his friends in Varadin dungeon beseeching him to save them either by ransom or by deed of prowess, he does not hesitate a moment in his choice of the heroic alternative. He takes a desperate chance and braves the unknown in his assault on the mysterious mountain Vila, but he compels her to undo the mischief she has wrought, and gains her lasting allegiance. When he overcomes the monstrous, three-hearted Moussa —thanks to a useful hint from his Vila friend—Marko grieves because he has slain a better man than himself. He is cunning and humorous in his adventure with Alil-Aga, and in the end shows himself a generous winner, although he cannot resist the temptation of reading the Turk a little lesson on the superior morality of the Serbs.

His delight in the wine-cup is unaffected and sincere. His manifold activities are punctuated by potations, his rough, cheery, convivial spirit is not to be denied. When the Sultan issues a decree forbidding wine to be drunk during the fast of Ramadan, Marko not only ignores the order but compels the gaping bystanders—the hodjas and the hadjis—to drink with him, for he cannot bear to drink alone.

His physical attributes are of the kind that win admiration in every country and in every age, and it is exceedingly probable that there is here a solid basis of fact and that here must be sought the origin of the Marko legend. His strength and skill in the use of weapons are marvellous. Philip, the terrible Magyar, smites the hero with his studded mace, and Marko scornfully begs him not to rouse the slumbering fleas, but when Philip's next blow breaks the golden goblet and spills the wine, Marko rises up in wrath and with one mighty sweep of his sword cuts the Magyar