“Go thou to my mother, and bid her restore
  To thy hands every gift which I valued before.

  “Then fling the gold ring in the depth of the sea,
  And eternity’s peace shall be given to me.

  “And sink the white kerchief deep, deep in the wave,
  That my head may repose undisturbed in the grave!”

The Slovaks, the Slavic inhabitants of the north-western districts of Hungary, are considered, as we have seen above, as the direct descendants of the first Slavic settlers in Europe.  Although for nearly a thousand years past they have formed a component part of the Hungarian nation, they have nevertheless preserved their language and many of their ancient customs.  Their literature, we know, is not to be separated from that of the Bohemians.  Their popular effusions are original; although, likewise, between them and the popular poetry of their Bohemian brethren, a close affinity cannot be denied.  The Slovaks are said to be still exceedingly rich in pretty and artless songs, both pensive and cheerful; but the original Slavic type is now very much effaced from them.  The surrounding nations, and above all the Germans, have exercised a decided and lasting influence upon them.

The following ballads are still heard among the Slovaks.  The first of them is also extant in an imperfect German shape.  As the coarse dialect, in which the German ballad may be heard, is that of the “Kuhlaendchen,” a small district of Silesia, where the Slavic neighbourhood has not been without influence, we have no doubt that the more complete Slavic ballad is the original.

  THE MOTHER’S CURSE.

  The maiden went for water,
  To the well o’er the meadow away;
  She there could draw no water,
  So thick the frost it lay.

  The mother she grew angry;
  She had it long to bemoan;
  “O daughter mine, O daughter,
    I would thou wert a stone!”

  The maiden’s water-pitcher
    Grew marble instantly;
  And she herself, the maiden,
    Became a maple tree.

  There came one day two lads,
    Two minstrels young they were;
  “We’ve travelled far, my brother,
    Such a maple we saw no where.

  “Come let us cut a fiddle,
    One fiddle for me and you;
  And from the same fine maple,
    For each one, fiddlesticks two.”

  They cut into the maple,—­
    There splashed the blood so red;
  The lads fell on the ground,
    So sore were they afraid.

  Then spake from within the maiden: 
    “Wherefore afraid are you? 
  Cut out of me one fiddle,
    And for each one, fiddlesticks two.

  “Then go and play right sadly,
    To my mother’s door begone,
  And sing:  Here is thy daughter,
    Whom thou didst curse to stone.”

  The lads they went, and sadly
    Their song to play began;
  The mother, when she heard them,
    Right to the window ran: