CHAPTER XX.

ROUMANIAN LIFE.

The Roumanians seem to be a long-lived race, and it is no uncommon thing to come across peasants of ninety and upwards, in full possession of all their faculties. In 1882 an old Roumanian peasant, being called as witness in a court of justice in Transylvania, and desired to state his age, was, like many people of his class, unable to name the year of his birth, and could only designate it approximately by saying, “I remember that, when I was a boy, our emperor was a woman,” which, as Maria Theresa died in 1780, could not have made him less than one hundred and ten years of age.

Many people have supposed the Roumanians to be more productive than other races, but the truth will more likely be found to be that although the births are not more numerous than among many other races, the mortality among infants is considerably less; the children inheriting the hardy resisting nature of the parents, and so to say, coming into the world ready-seasoned to endure the hardships in store for them.

Perhaps it is because the Roumanian has himself so few wants that he feels no anxiety about the future of his children, and therefore the rapid increase of his family occasions him no uneasiness. Having little personal property, he is a stranger to the cares which accompany their possession. Like the lilies of the field, he neither sows nor reaps, and the whole programme of his life, of an admirable simplicity, may be thus summed up:

In early infancy the Roumanian babe is treated as a bundle, often packed in a little wooden oval box, and slung on its mother’s back, thus carried about wherever she goes. If to work in the field, she attaches the box to the branch of a tree; and when sitting at market it can be stowed on the ground between a basket of eggs and a pair of cackling fowls. When after a very few months it outgrows the box, and crawls out of its cocoon, the baby begins to share its parents’ food, and soon learns to manage for itself. The food of both children and adults chiefly consists of maize-corn flour, which, cooked with milk, forms a sort of porridge called balmosch, or, if boiled with water, becomes mamaliga—first-cousin to the polenta of the Italians. This latter preparation is eaten principally in Lent, when milk is prohibited altogether; and there are many families who, during the whole Lenten season, nourish themselves exclusively on dried beans.

When the Roumanian child has reached a reasonable age, it is old enough to be a help and comfort to its parents, and assist them in gaining an honest livelihood. By a reasonable age may be understood five or six, and an honest livelihood, translated—helping them to steal wood in the forest. Later on the boy is often bound over as swine or cow herd to some Saxon landholder for a period of several years, on quitting whose service he is entitled to the gift of a calf or pig from the master he is leaving.

Once in actual possession of a calf the Roumanian lad considers himself to be a made man. He has no ground of his own; but such petty considerations not affecting him, he proceeds to build himself a domicile, wherever best suits his purpose, on some waste piece of land. Stone hardly ever enters into the fabrication of his building; the framework is roughly put together of wooden beams, and the walls clay-plastered and wattled, while the roof is covered with thatch of reeds or wooden shingles, according as he may happen to live nearest to a marsh or a forest. Yet, such as it is, the Roumanian’s hut is his castle, and he is as proud of its possession as the King can be of his finest palace. Each man’s hut is regarded as his own special sanctuary, and however intimate a man may be with his neighbor, it is not customary for him to step over the threshold, or even enter the court-yard, after dusk. Only in special and very pressing cases does this rule admit of any exception.

The inside of a Roumanian hut is by no means so miserable as its outward appearance would lead us to suppose. The walls are all hung with a profusion of holy pictures, mostly painted on glass and framed in wood; while the furniture is brightly painted in rough but not inartistic designs—the passion these people have for ornamenting all their wood-work in this fashion leading them even to paint the yoke of their oxen and the handles of their tools. There is always a weaving-loom set up at one end of the room, and mostly a new-born baby swinging in a basket suspended from the rafters.

The products of the loom—consisting in stuffs striped, chiefly blue, scarlet, and white, in Oriental designs, sometimes with gold or silver threads introduced in the weaving—are hung upon ropes or displayed along the walls. These usually belong to the trousseau of the daughter (perhaps the self-same infant we see suspended from the ceiling), but can occasionally be purchased after a little bargaining.

Every Roumanian woman spins, dyes, and weaves as a matter of course; and almost each village has its own set of colors and patterns, according to its particular costume, which varies with the different localities, though all partake alike of the same general character, which, in the case of the women, is chiefly represented by a long alb-like under-garment of linen reaching to the feet, and above two straight-cut Roman aprons front and back, which have the effect of a tunic slit up at the sides. The subject of Roumanian dress offers a most bewildering field for description, and the nuances and varieties to be found would lead one on ad infinitum were I to attempt to enumerate all those I have come across.

Thus in one village the costume is all black and white, the cut and make of an almost conventual simplicity, forming a piquante contrast to the blooming faces and seductive glances of the beautiful wearers, who thus give the impression of a band of light-hearted maidens masquerading in nun’s attire. In other hamlets I have visited blue or scarlet was the prevailing color; and a few steps over the Roumanian frontier will show us glittering costumes covered with embroidery and spangles, rich and gaudy as the attire of some Oriental princess stepped straight out of the “Arabian Nights.”

The Roman aprons, here called câtrinte, are in some districts—as, for instance, in the Banat—composed of long scarlet fringes, fully three-quarters of a yard in length, and depending from a very few inches of solid stuff at the top. The résumé of this attire—a linen shirt and a little fringe as sole covering for a full-grown woman—may, in theory, be startling to our English sense of propriety, but in practice the effect has nothing objectionable about it. Dress, after all, is merely a matter of comparison, as we are told by a witty French writer. A Wallachian woman considers herself fully dressed with a chemise, while a Hungarian thinks herself naked with only three skirts.

The head-dress varies much with the different districts; sometimes it is a brightly colored shawl or handkerchief, oftener a creamy filmy veil, embroidered or spangled, and worn with ever-varied effect; occasionally it is wound round the head turban fashion, now floating down the back like a Spanish mantilla, or coquettishly drawn forward and concealing the lower part of the face, or again twisted up in Satanella-like horns, which give the wearer a slightly demoniacal appearance.

Whatever is tight or strained-looking about the dress is considered unbeautiful; the folds must always flow downward in soft easy lines, the sleeves should be full and bulging, and the skirt long enough to conceal the feet, so that in dancing only the toes are visible.

The men have also much variety in their dress for grand occasions, but for ordinary wear they confine themselves to a plain coarse linen shirt, which hangs down over the trousers like a workman’s blouse, confined at the waist by a broad red or black leather belt, which contains various receptacles for holding money, pistols, knife and fork, etc. The trousers, which fit rather tightly to the leg, are in summer of linen, in winter of a coarse sort of white cloth. Of the same cloth is made the large overcoat which he wears in winter, sometimes replaced by a sheepskin pelisse.

Both sexes wear on the feet a sort of sandal called opintschen, which consists of an oval-shaped piece of leather drawn together by leather thongs, beneath which the feet are swaddled in wrappings of linen or woollen rags.

Dress makes the man, according to the Roumanian’s estimate, and rather than want for handsome clothes a man should deprive himself of food and drink. Stomacul nu are oglinda (the stomach has no mirror), says their proverb; therefore the man who has no fitting costume to wear on Easter Sunday should hide himself rather than appear at church shabbily attired.

To be consistent with the Roumanian’s notion of cleanliness, his clothes should by rights be spun, woven, and made at home. Sometimes he may be obliged to purchase a cap or coat of a stranger, but in such cases he is careful to select a dealer of his own nationality.

Roumanian women are very industrious, and they make far better domestic servants than either Hungarians or Saxons, the Germans living in towns often selecting them in preference to their own countrywomen. In some places you never see a Roumanian woman without her distaff; she even takes it with her to market, and may frequently be seen trudging along the high-road twirling the spindle as she goes.

The men do not seem to share this love of labor, having, on the contrary, much of the Italian lazzarone in their composition, and not taking to any kind of manual labor unless driven to it by necessity. The life of a shepherd is the only calling which the Roumanian embraces con amore, and his love for his sheep may truly be likened to the Arab’s love of his horse. A real Roumanian shepherd, bred and brought up to the life, has so completely identified himself with his calling that everything about him—food and dress, mind and matter—has, so to say, become completely “sheepified.” Sheep’s milk and cheese (called brindza) form the staple of his nourishment. His dress consists principally of sheepskin, four sheep furnishing him with the cloak which lasts him through life, one new-born lamb giving him the cap he wears; and when he dies the shepherd’s grave is marked by a tuft of snowy wool attached to the wooden cross above the mound. His whole mental faculties are concentrated on the study of his sheep, and so sharpened have his perceptions become in this one respect that he is able to divine and foretell to a nicety every change of the weather, merely from observing the demeanor of his flock.

Forests have no charm for the shepherd, who, regarding everything from a pastoral point of view, sees in each tree an insolent intruder depriving his sheep of their rightful nourishment; and he covertly seeks to increase his pasture by setting fire to the woods whenever he can hope to do so with impunity. Whole tracts of noble forest have thus been laid waste, and it is much to be feared that half a century hence the country will present a bleak and desolate appearance, unless some means can be discovered in order to prevent this abuse.

CHAPTER XXI.

ROUMANIAN MARRIAGE AND MORALITY.

Marriageable Roumanian girls often wear a head-dress richly embroidered with pearls and coins; this is a sign that their trousseaus are ready, and that they only wait for a suitor. The preparation of the trousseau, involving as it does much spinning, weaving, and embroidering, in order to get ready the requisite number of shirts, towels, pillow-covers, etc., considered indispensable, often keeps the girl and her family employed for years beforehand. In some districts we are told that it is customary for the young man who is seeking a girl in marriage to make straight for the painted wooden chest containing her dowry; and only when satisfied, by the appearance of the contents, of the skill and industry of his intended, does he proceed to the formal demand of her hand. If, on the contrary, the coffer prove to be ill-furnished, he is at liberty to beat a retreat, and back out of the affair. The matter has been still further simplified in one village, for there, during the carnival-time, the mother of each marriageable daughter is in the habit of organizing a sort of standing exhibition of the maiden’s effects in the dwelling-room, where each article is displayed to the best advantage, hung against the walls or spread out upon the benches. The would-be suitor is thus enabled to review the situation merely by pushing the door ajar, and need not even cross the threshold if the display falls short of his expectations.

In some districts a pretty little piece of acting is still kept up on the wedding-morning. The bridegroom, accompanied by his friends, arrives on horseback at full gallop before the house of his intended, and roughly calls upon the father to give him his daughter. The old man denies having any daughter; but after some mock wrangling he goes into the house and leads out an old toothless hag, who is received with shouts and clamors. Then, after a little more fencing, he goes in again and leads out the true bride dressed in her best clothes, and with his blessing gives her over to the bridegroom.[21]

An orthodox Roumanian wedding should last seven days and seven nights, neither less nor more; but as there are many who cannot afford this sacrifice of time, they circumvent the difficulty by interrupting the festivities after the first day, and resuming them on the seventh.

The ceremony itself is accomplished with much gayety and rejoicing. The parents of the bridegroom go to fetch the bride, in a cart harnessed with four oxen whose horns are wreathed with flower garlands; the village musicians march in front, and the chest containing the trousseau is placed on the cart. One of the bride’s relations carries her dowry tied up in a handkerchief attached to the point of a long pole.

Whoever is invited to a Roumanian wedding is expected to bring not only a cake and a bottle of wine, but also some other gift of less transitory nature—a piece of linen, an embroidered towel, a handkerchief, or such-like.

In some villages it is customary for the bride, after the wedding-feast, to step over the banqueting-table and upset a bucket of water placed there for the purpose.[22] After this begins the dancing, at which it is usual for each guest to take a turn with the bride, and receive from her a kiss in return for the civility.

An ancient custom, now fast dying out, was the tergul de fete—the maidens’ market—celebrated each year at the top of the Gaina mountain, at a height of nearly six thousand feet above the level of the sea, and where all the marriageable girls for miles around used to assemble to be courted on the 29th of June, Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. The trousseau, packed in a gayly decorated chest, was placed in a cart harnessed with the finest horses or the fattest oxen, and thus the girl and her whole family proceeded to the place of rendezvous. Sheep, calves, poultry, and even beehives, were likewise brought by way of decoration; and many people went the length of borrowing strange cattle or furniture, in order to cut a better figure and lure on the suitors—although it was an understood thing that only a part of what was thus displayed really belonged to the maiden’s dowry. The destination being reached, each family having a girl to dispose of erected its tent, with the objects grouped around, and seated in front was the head of the family, smoking his pipe and awaiting the suitors.

The young men on their side came also accompanied by their families, bringing part of their property with them, notably a broad leather belt well stocked with gold and silver coins.

When an agreement had been effected, then the betrothal took place on the spot, with music, dancing, and singing, and it hardly ever happened that a girl returned home unbetrothed from this meeting. But, to say the truth, this was, latterly, only because each girl attending the fair went there virtually betrothed to some youth with whom all the preliminaries of courtship had already been gone through, and this was merely the official way of celebrating the betrothal, the Roumanians in these parts believing that good-luck will attend only such couples as are affianced in this manner. Any girl who had not got a bridegroom in spe rarely went there at all, or, if she went, did not take her trousseau, but considered herself as a mere spectator.

In former days, however, this assemblage had a real signification, and was, moreover, dictated by a real necessity. There were fewer villages, and a far larger proportion than now of the population led the wandering, nomadic life of mountain shepherds, cut off from intercourse with their fellow-creatures during the greater part of the year, and with no opportunity of making choice of a consort. The couples thus betrothed on the 29th of June could not be married till the following spring, for immediately after this date the shepherds remove their flocks to higher pasturages, and, proceeding southward as the year advances, do not return to that neighborhood till the Feast of St. George.

Another curious custom in connection with the maidens’ market was, that on Holy Saturday each girl who had been betrothed on the preceding 29th of June on the Gaina mountain came to a village of that district called Halmagy, dressed in her best clothes, and there offered a kiss to each respectable person of either sex she happened to meet on her way. The individual thus saluted was bound to give a present in return, even were it but a copper coin; and to decline or resist the embrace was regarded as the greatest affront. This custom, known as the kiss market, seems to have originated at the time when all the newly married young shepherdesses used to leave the neighborhood to follow their husbands in their roving life, and this was their mode of bidding farewell to all friends and relations. This custom has now likewise become almost extinct, for the conditions of daily life have been considerably modified during the last fifty years, and nowadays the newly married shepherd, after a very brief honeymoon, goes away alone with his flock, leaving his wife established in the village, even though his absence may extend over a year. Many Roumanian villages are thus virtually inhabited solely by women, and to a population of several thousand females we not unfrequently find but twenty or thirty men, and these mostly old and decrepit, the real lords and masters only appearing from time to time on a short and flying visit. Szeliste, one of the largest Roumanian villages in the neighborhood of Hermanstadt, and celebrated for the good looks of its inhabitants, presents thus, during the greater part of the year, a touching array of desolate Penelopes; and it is much to be feared that the score of feeble old men left them as guardians are altogether insufficient to defend the wholesale amount of female virtue intrusted to their charge.

The Roumanian always regards marriage with a stranger as something opprobrious. The man who marries other than a Roumanian woman ceases to be a Roumanian in his people’s eyes, and is henceforward regarded as unclean; and a popa whose wife was not a Roumanian would not be accepted by any congregation. Yet more severely condemned is the woman who marries a stranger; the marriage itself is considered invalid, and no Roumanians who respect themselves would keep up acquaintance with such a person.

According to their views a girl should remain in her own village, but a man may, without losing caste, marry into another neighborhood. Any father will consider it an honor to take a strange son-in-law into his house, and the greater the distance this latter has come, in the same proportion does the honor increase. But a man who gives his daughter in marriage out of the village loses his prestige in exact proportion as she goes farther away from home. “He has given his daughter away from home” is a reproach to which no man cares to expose himself.

In districts where Roumanians live together with other races professing the Greek faith, these marriage laws have been somewhat modified. So unions in the Bukowina with Ruthenians and in the Banat with Serbs, though still regarded as objectionable, are not so rare as they used to be.

No respectable girl should leave her parents’ house unless driven to it by necessity; and if she be obliged to go into service, it should only be in the house of the popa, or in that of some particularly distinguished native of the place. The Roumanian girls serving in the towns are mostly such as have been obliged to leave their native village in consequence of a moral slip.

Much has been said about the lightness of behavior characterizing Roumanian girls—Saxons in particular being fond of drawing attention to the comparative statistics of the two races, which show, it is true, a very large balance of legitimate births in their own favor. If, however, we look at the matter somewhat more closely, we are forced to acknowledge that the words legitimate and illegitimate can only here be taken in a very modified sense; for while the Saxon peasant marries and divorces with such culpable lightness as to render the marriage tie of little real value, the Roumanian has introduced a sort of regularity even into his irregular connections which goes far to excuse them. Whatever, also, may be said of the loose conduct of many of the Roumanian married women, the same reproach cannot be applied to the girls.

It happens frequently that among the Roumanians, who, like most Southern races, attain manhood early, there are many young men who have chosen a partner for life long before the time they are called for military conscription; and as it is here illegal for all such to marry before they have accomplished their three years’ service as soldiers, and no parents could therefore be induced to give them their daughter, a curious sort of elopement takes place. Two or more of the lover’s friends carry off the girl, after a mock resistance on her part, to some other village, where he himself awaits her with his witnesses. These latter receive the reciprocal declaration of the young couple that they wish to be man and wife. The girl is then solemnly invested with a head-kerchief, veil, or comb, whichever happens to be the sign of matronhood in her village; and from that moment she takes rank as a married woman, the lad as her husband, and their children are considered as legitimate as those born in regular wedlock. Three or four years later, when the young man has served his time as a soldier, the union is formally blessed by the priest in church; but in that case none of the usual marriage festivities take place.

It is very rare that a man deserts the girl to whom he has been wedded in this irregular fashion; and in cases where he has been known to do so and take another wife, both he and she are tabooed by the neighbors, and the first wife is regarded as the real one.

As, however, all children originating from such unions are officially classified as illegitimate, the barren figures would give an erroneously unfavorable idea of the Roumanian state of morality to those unacquainted with these details; and it is therefore really no anomaly to say that illegitimate here is tantamount to three-quarters legitimate, while the Saxons’ legitimacy does not always quite deserve that name.

A jilted lover will revenge himself on his mistress by ostentatiously dancing with some other lass; and in order to do her some material injury as well, he goes secretly at night and cuts down with a sickle the unripe hemp and flax which were to have served for spinning her wedding-clothes. It is always an understood thing that the hemp belongs to the female members of the family, and there is a certain poetry in the idea of thus cutting off the faithless one’s thread. Thus the father, finding his hemp prematurely cut down, is at once aware that something has gone wrong about his daughter’s love-affair.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE ROUMANIANS: DANCING, SONGS, MUSIC, STORIES, AND PROVERBS.

The dances habitual among the Roumanians may briefly be divided into three sorts:

1. Caluseri and Batuta, ancient traditional dances performed by men only, and often executed at fairs and public festivals. For these a fixed number of dancers is required, and a leader called the vatav. Each dancer is provided with a long staff, which he occasionally strikes on the ground in time to the music.

2. Hora and Breûl, round dances executed either by both sexes or by men only.

3. Ardeleana, Lugojana, Marnteana, Pe-picior, and Hategeana, danced by both sexes together, and in which each man may have two or more female partners.

These last-named dances rather resemble a minuet or quadrille, and are chiefly made up of a sort of swaying, balancing movement, alternately advancing and retreating, with varied modes of expression and different rates of velocity. Thus the Ardeleana is slow, the Marnteana rather quicker but still dignified, and the Pe-picior is fastest of all. Also, each separate dance has two distinct measures, as in the Scotch reel or the Hungarian csardas—the slow rhythm being called domol, or reflectively, and the fast one being danced cu foc, with fire.

All these dances are found in different districts with varied appellations.

There is also a very singular dance which I have not myself witnessed, but which is said to be sometimes performed in front of the church in order to insure a good harvest—one necessary condition of which is that the people should dance till in a state of violent perspiration, figurative of the rain which is required to make the corn grow; then the arms must be held on high for the hops to grow, wild jumps in the air for the vines, and so on, each grain and fruit having a special movement attributed to it, the dance being kept up till the dancers have to give in from sheer fatigue.

The Roumanian does not say that a man is dancing with a girl, but that “he dances her,” as you would talk of spinning a top. This conveys the right impression—namely, that the man directs her dancing and disposes her attitudes, so as to show off her grace and charms to the best advantage. Thus a good dancer here does not imply a man who dances well himself, but rather one skilful at showing off two or three partners at a time. He acts, in fact, as a sort of showman to the assortment of graces under his charge, to which he calls attention by appropriate rhymes and verses. Therefore the sharpest wit rather than the nimblest legs is required for the post of vatav flacailor, or director of dances in the village.

Dancing usually takes place in the open air; and in villages where ball-room etiquette is duly observed, the fair ones can only be conducted to the dance by the director himself, or by one of his appointed aides-de-camp. It is so arranged that after the leader has for a time shown off several girls in the manner described—so to say, set them agoing—he makes a sign to other young men to take them off his hands, while he himself repeats the proceeding with other débutantes.

The music usually consists of bagpipes and violin, the latter sometimes replaced by one or two flutes. The musicians, who are frequently blind men or cripples, stand in the centre, the dancers revolving around them. Tzigane-players are rarely made use of for Roumanian dances, as they do not interpret the Roumanian music correctly, and are accused of imparting a bold, licentious character to it.

There are many occasions on which music is prescribed, and on all such it should not be wanting; but it is considered unseemly for music to play without special motive, and when the Roumanian hears music he invariably asks, “La ce cântà?”—for whom do they play?

Fully as many matrons as maidens figure at the village merrymakings, for, unlike the Saxon, the Roumanian woman does not dream of giving up dancing at her marriage. Wedlock is to her an emancipation, not a bondage, and she only begins really to enjoy her life from the moment she becomes a wife. For instance, it is considered quite correct for a married woman, especially if she has got children, to suffer herself to be publicly kissed and embraced by her dancer, and no one present would think of taking umbrage at such harmless liberties.

In reciting or making a speech, the Roumanian is careful to speak slowly and distinctly, with dignity and deliberation, and to avoid much gesticulation, which is regarded as ridiculous. It is also considered distinguished to speak rather obscurely, and veil the meaning under figures of speech—a man who says his meaning plainly in so many words being considered as wanting in breeding.

As in Italy, the recitatore (story-teller), called here provestitore, holds an important place among the Roumanians. The stories recited usually belong to the class of ogre and fairy tale, and would seem rather adapted to a nursery audience than to a circle of full-grown men and women. Sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, these stories oftenest set forth the adventures of some prince subjected to the cruel persecutions of a giant or sorcerer. The hero has usually a series of tasks allotted to him, or difficulties to be overcome, before he is permitted to enjoy his father’s throne in peace and lead home the beautiful princess to whom he is attached. The tasks dealt out to him must be three at least, sometimes six, seven, nine, or twelve; but never more than this last number, which indeed is quite sufficient for the endurance even of a fairy prince. When the tasks are nine or twelve in number they are then grouped together in batches of three, each batch being finished off with some stereotyped phrase, such as, “But our hero’s trials were not yet over by any means, and much remains still to be told.” As a matter of course, these trials must always be arranged crescendo, advancing in horror and difficulty towards the end.

The story invariably opens with the words,

“A fost ce a fost; dacà n’ar fi fost nici nu s’ar povesti,” which, corresponding to our “once upon a time,” may be thus translated: “It was what once took place, and if it had never been, it would not now be related;” and the concluding phrase is often this one, “And if they have not died, they are all yet alive.”

It is not every one who can relate a story correctly according to the Roumanian’s mode of thinking. He is most particular as to the precise inflections of voice, which must alternately be slow and impressive, or impetuous and hurried, according to the requirements of the narrative. If the story winds up with a wedding, the narrator is careful to observe that he also was present on the occasion, in proof of which he enumerates at great length the names of the guests invited and the dishes which formed part of the banquet; and according to the fertility of imagination he displays in describing these details he will be classed by his audience as a provestitore of first, second, or third rank.

The Roumanians have a vast répertoire of songs and rhymes for particular occasions, and many of these people seem to possess great natural fluency for expressing themselves in verse, assisted, no doubt, by the rich choice of rhymes offered by their language. Some people would seem to talk as easily in verse as in prose, and there are districts where it is not considered seemly to court a girl otherwise than in rhymed speech. All these rhymes, as well as most of their songs and ballads, are moulded in four feet verse, which best adapts itself to the fundamental measure of Roumanian music. Among the principal forms of song prevalent in the country are the Doina, the Ballad, the Kolinda, the Cantece de Irogi, the Cantece de Stea, the Plugul, the Cantece de Paparuga, the Cantece de Nunta, the Descantece, and the Bocete.

1. The Doina is a lyrical poem, mostly of a mournful, monotonous character, much resembling the gloomy Dumkas of the Ruthenians, and from which, perhaps, its name is derived; and this is all the more probable, as many of the songs sung by the Roumanians of the Bukowina are identical with those to be heard sung by their countrymen living in the Hungarian Banat. Thus it is of curious effect to hear the celebrated song of the Dniester, “Nistrule riu blestemal” (Dniester, cursed river), in which lament is made over the women carried off by the Tartars, sung on the plains of Hungary, so many hundred miles away from the scenes which originated it.

2. The Ballad, also called Cantece, or song proper, its title usually specifying whose particular song it is; for instance, “Cantecul lui Horia”—the song of Hora, or more literally, Hora, his song—lui Jancu, lui Marko, etc.

These ballads are sung to the accompaniment of a shepherd’s pipe or flute, but are oftener merely recited, it not being considered good form to have them sung except by blind or crippled beggars, such as go about at markets or fairs.[23]

3. The Kolinda, or Christmas song, the name derived from a heathen goddess, Lada.[24] These consist of songs and dialogues, oftenest of a mythological character, and bearing no sort of allusion to the Christian festival. The performers go about from house to house knocking at each door, with the usual formula, “Florile s’dalbe, buna sara lui Cracinim”—white is the flower, a happy Christmas-night to you.

The Turca, or Brezaia, also belongs to the same category as the Kolinda, but is of a somewhat more boisterous character, and is performed by young men, who, all following a leader grotesquely attired in a long cloak and mask (oftenest representing the long beak of a stork, or a bull’s head, hence the name), go about the villages night and day as long as the Christmas festivities last, pursuing the girls and terrifying the children. A certain amount of odium is attached to the personification of the Turca himself, and the man who has acted this part is regarded as unclean or bewitched by the devil during a period of six weeks, and may not enter a church nor approach a sacrament till this time has elapsed.

In the Bukowina the Turca, or Tur, goes by the name of the Capra, and is called Cleampa in the east of Transylvania.

4. The Cantece de Irogi is the name given to the text of many carnival games and dialogues in which Rahula (Rachel) and her child, a shepherd, a Jew, a Roumanian popa, and the devil appear in somewhat unintelligible companionship.

5. The Cantece de Stea—songs of the star—are likewise sung at this period by children, who go about with a tinsel star at the end of a stick.

6. The Plugul—song of the plough—a set of verses sung on New-year’s Day by young men fantastically dressed up, and with manifold little bells attached to feet and legs. They proceed noisily through the streets of towns and villages, cracking long whips as though urging on a team of oxen at the plough.

7. The Cantece de Paparuga are songs which are sung on the third Sunday after Easter, or in cases of prolonged drought.

8. The Cantece de Nunta are the wedding songs, of which there are a great number. These are, however, rarely sung, but oftener recited. They take various forms, such as that of invitation, health-drinking, congratulations, etc. To these may be added the Cantece de Cumetrie and the Cantecul ursitelor, which express rejoicings over a new-born infant.

9. The Descantece, or descantations, are very numerous. They consist in secret charms or spells expressed in rhyme, which, in order to be efficacious, must be imparted to children or grandchildren only when the parent is lying on his death-bed. These oftenest relate to illnesses of man or beast, to love or to life; and each separate contingency has its own set formula, which is thus transmitted from generation to generation.

10. The Bocete are songs of mourning, usually sung over the corpse by paid mourners.

On the principle that the character of a people is best demonstrated by its proverbs, a few specimens of those most current among Roumanians may be here quoted:

“A man without enemies is of little value.”

“It is easier to keep guard over a bush full of live hares than over one woman.”

“A hen which cackles overnight lays no egg in the morning.”

“A wise enemy is better than a foolish friend.”

“In the daytime he runs away from the buffalo, but in the night he seizes the devil by the horn.”[25]

“Carry your wife your whole life on your back, but, if once you set her down, she will say, ‘I am tired.’”

“The just man always goes about with a bruised head.”

“Sit crooked, but speak straight.”

“Father and mother you will never find again, but wives as many as you list.”

“The blessing of many children has broken no man’s roof as yet.”

“Better an egg to-day than an ox next year.”

“No one throws a stone at a fruitless tree.”

“Patience and silence give the grapes time to grow sweet.”

“If you seek for a faultless friend you will be friendless all your life.”

“There where you cannot catch anything, do not stretch out your hand.”

“Who runs after two hares will not even catch one.”

“The dog does not run away from a whole forest of trees, but a single stick will make him run.”

“A real Jew will never pause to eat until he has cheated you.”

“You cannot carry two melons in one hand.”

“Who has been bitten by a snake is afraid of a lizard.”

CHAPTER XXIII.

ROUMANIAN POETRY.

It is hardly necessary to remark that the history of Roumanian literature must needs be a scanty one as yet. Considering the past history of these people on either side of the frontier, and the manner in which they have been oppressed and persecuted, the wonder is rather to find them to-day so far advanced on the road that leads to immortality.

The first Roumanian book (a collection of psalms, probably translated from the Greek) was printed at Kronstadt in 1577, and was succeeded by many other similar works, all printed in Cyrillian characters.

As historians and chroniclers, the names of Ureki, Miron Kostin, Dosithei, and of Prince Dimetrie Kantemir, all hold honorable positions between the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century. Political events then stemmed the current of progress for a time, and made of the rest of the eighteenth century a period of intellectual stagnation for all Roumanians, whether of Wallachia, Moldavia, or Transylvania. It was from the latter country that about the year 1820 was given the first impulse towards resurrection, connected with which we read the names of Lazar, Majorescu, Assaki, Mikul, Petru Major, Cipariu, Bolinteanu, Balcescu, Constantin Negruzzi, and Cogalnitscheanu.

It was only after the middle of the present century that Latin characters began to be adopted in place of Cyrillian ones, and indeed it is not easy to understand why the Cyrillian alphabet ever came to be used at all. On this subject Stanley, writing in 1856, speaks as follows:

The first Roumanian political newspaper was issued by Georg Baritiu in 1838. At present several Roumanian newspapers appear in Transylvania, of which the Observatorul and the Telegraful Roman are the principal ones. There are in the country two Greek Catholic seminaries for priests, and one Greek Oriental one, a commercial school at Kronstadt, four upper gymnasiums, and numerous primary schools, all of which are self-supporting, and receive no assistance from the Hungarian Government.

Some portion of the rich store of folk songs which from time immemorial have been sung in the country by wandering minstrels, called cantari, has been rescued from oblivion by the efforts of Alexandri, and after him Torceanu, who, going about from village to village, have written down all they could learn from the lips of the peasants. One of the most beautiful and pathetic of the ballads thus collected by Alexandri is that of Curte d’Arghisch, an ancient and well-known Roumanian legend, the greater part of which I have here endeavored to reproduce in an English version. These ballads are, however, exceedingly difficult to translate at all characteristically, our language neither possessing that abundant choice of rhyme, so apt to drive a translator to envious despair, nor yet the harmonious current of sound which lends a peculiar charm to the loose and rambling metre in which these songs are mostly written.

CLOISTER ARGHISCH.

I.

II.

III.

The poem goes on to say how Manoll a second time implores the Creator to send a hurricane which shall ravage the face of nature and impede her progress. Once more his prayer is granted, and a mighty wind, which,

rages over the land.

The fourth canto relates how the nine master masons are filled with joy at sight of this heaven-sent victim. Manoll alone is sad, as, kissing his wife, he takes her in his arms and carries her up the scaffolding. There he places her in a niche, explaining that they are going to pretend to build her in merely as a joke; while the poor young wife, scenting no danger, claps her hands in childish pleasure at the idea.

There is still a fifth canto to this ballad, but of such decidedly inferior merit as to suggest the idea that it is a piece of patchwork added on at a later period. The prince, delighted at the success of the building, asks the master masons whether they could undertake to raise a second church of yet nobler, loftier proportions than the first. This question being answered in the affirmative, the tyrannical Voyvod, probably afraid of their embellishing some other country with the work of their genius, orders the ladders and scaffolding to be removed from the building, so that the ten illustrious architects are left standing on the roof, there to perish of starvation. Hoping to escape this doom, each of the master masons constructs for himself a pair of artificial wings, or rather a sort of parachute, out of light wooden shingles, and by means of which he hopes safely to reach the ground. But the parachutes are a miserable failure, and crashing down with violence, the nine master masons are turned into as many stones. Manoll, the last to descend, and distracted at hearing the wailing voice of his dying wife calling upon him, falls likewise; but the tears welling up from his breast cause him to be transformed into a spring of crystal water flowing near the church, and to this day known by the name of Manolli’s well.

“Miora,” or “The Lamb,” is another popular ballad, which, sung and recited throughout Roumania and Transylvania, is gracefully illustrative of the idyllic bond by which shepherd and flock are united:

MIORA.

The third and last of those folk songs which limited space permits me here to quote is one I have selected as being peculiarly characteristic of the tender and clinging affection these people bear to their progeny. Devoid of poetical merit it may perhaps be, but surely the unsatisfied yearnings of a childless woman have seldom been more pathetically rendered.

THE ROUMANIAN’S DESIRE.

It is not easy to classify the cultivated Roumanian writers of the present day, still less so is it to select appropriate specimens from their works. Roumanian literature is in a transition state at present, and, despite much talent and energy on the part of its representatives, has not as yet regained any fixed national character. Perhaps, indeed, it would be more correct to say that precisely the talent and energy of some of the most gifted writers have harmed Roumanian literature more than they have assisted it, by dragging into fashion a dozen different modes utterly incongruous with one another, and with the mainsprings of Roumanian thought and feeling. No doubt the custom of sending their children to be educated outside the country is much to blame for this; and, naturally enough, French poets have been imported into the land along with Parisian fashions.

Béranger and Musset, along with Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron, and Heine, have all been abused in this manner by men who should have understood that the strength of any literature does not lie in the successful imitation of foreign models, however excellent, but rather in the intelligent exploitation of its own historical and artistic treasures. Even Basil Alexandri, the first and most national of Roumanian poets, sometimes falls unconsciously into this error, still more perceptible in the works of Rosetti, Negruzzi, and Cornea.

Odobescu, Gane, Alexi, and Dunca have acquired some fame as writers of fiction; and Joan Slavici in particular may here be cited for his charming sketches of rural life, which have something of the force and delicacy of Turguenief’s hand.

FET LOGOFET[29] (literally, YOUNG FOOLHARDY).

THE FAULT IS NOT THINE.[30]

I do not suppose that any one with the slightest knowledge of Roumania and Roumanians can fail to detect an alien note in both these compositions, despite the grace of the originals; nor can one help feeling that these authors should have been capable of far better things.

And surely far better and grander things will come ere long from this nation, at once so old and so young! when, having regained its lost self-confidence, it comes to understand that more evil than good is engendered by a blind conformity to foreign fashions.

Already a step in the right direction has been taken in the matter of national dress, which, thanks to the praiseworthy example of the Roumanian queen, has lately received much attention. And as in dress, so in literature, does Carmen Sylva take the lead, and endeavor to teach her people to value national productions above foreign importations.

When, therefore, Roumanian writers begin to see that their force lies not in the servile imitation of Western models, but in working out the rich vein of their own folk-lore, and in bridging over the space which takes them back to ancient pagan traditions, then, doubtless, a new era will set in for the literature of the country. Let Roumanian poets leave Béranger and Musset to moulder on their book-shelves, and consign to oblivion Heinrich Heine, whose exquisitely morbid sentimentality is far too fragile an article to bear importation; let them cease from wandering abroad, and assuredly they will discover in their own forests and mountains better and more vigorous material than Paris or Germany can offer: the old stones around them will begin to speak, and the old gods will let themselves be lured from out their hiding-places. Then will it be seen that Apollo’s lyre has not ceased to vibrate, and the lays of ancient Rome will arise and develop to new life.