Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/174

166 IX. A ballad sung while swinging. The swing is a dear pastime with the Esthonians. By this vibrating motion, the soul sinks into a kind of slumber, and for a time forgets its misery. What the "gate" was among the Orientals ("He shall be praised in the gate." "Haman saw him in the gate." "They are crush'd in the gate." "They that sit in the gate speak against me." "Shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate." "Lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate." "Establish judgment in the gate," &c.), that same is the swing with this nation. Here the young and old assemble together; the father enjoys himself with his sons, the mother with her daughters. Here they talk over all the news of the place, discuss characters, and perhaps quarrels. Every one brings some provision with him, because, on a holiday, they pass the greater part of the afternoon here, and the whole of the evening. He that has gives to him that has not.

The Kubijas is a person placed over the boors, who, with his family, is exempt from all work as a serf; he therefore has the means of managing his own acres, and looking after their produce, as he and his people have nothing else to do; accordingly he is much richer than the other boors. One or other of his fellow-vassals is ever bringing him some present, by way of bribe, either to remit him a day's work, unknown to the lord, or otherwise to spare him. It is therefore with great naivete, said in the last line, "Of the Kubija's daughter, I found a golden coif." How different from the poor fatherless and motherless orphan! "Of the orphan I saw only the false tresses." All these findings were things which the girls had dropped in running away as fast as they could. The two upright posts to which the swing is suspended, sometimes by the velocity of the motion become loose, and the persons in it are tumbled together on the ground. Of Lisa (Elizabeth) she found some handsome garters, because, doubtless, she was taken as a maid-servant to the great house. The poetess picked up all these fine articles, comes joyfully tripping along with