HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

428 ALBERT B. LORDreturn song in the Russian and South Slavic traditions is that in theSouth Slavic the hero is recently married (in many cases, he leaves onhis wedding night), whereas in the Russian this element is missing.Another significant difference between the bylina about Dobrynjaand Aljośa and the South Slavic return songs is in the recognitionscene between the returned hero and his wife. Dobrynja comes to thewedding feast disguised as a singer and recognition occurs through aring in a cup or chalice which is presented by the minstrel to the bride.The motif of recognition by a ring, so common elsewhere (includingthe English ballads "Hind Horn" and "Lord Bateman," and theMiddle English romance "King Horn") is not found in the Serbo-Croatian or Bulgarian return songs with which I am acquainted. Onthe other hand, although the returned hero is never (as far as I recall)disguised as a minstrel, recognition is nevertheless brought about bysong. For example, the hero, after telling a deceptive story about hisown identity, says that his friend (whom he is pretending to be — himself,of course) had left behind a tambura and asked him to sing a bit inhis memory. In "Ropstvo Jankovica Stojana," Stojan sings a transparentlysymbolic song which clearly reveals his identity. Elsewherethe hero frankly sings, "I do not wonder that my mother does notrecognize me, because she has become blind from weeping; nor at mysister, since she was very little when I went away; but I do wonder atmy servant for not remembering his young master. ..." Songs, if notrings, are a common denominator in the two Slavic traditions underconsideration, Russian and South Slavic, although the form that themotif takes varies.One could continue to enumerate the famous stories known in boththe Russian and South Slavic traditions, as, indeed, Putilov has done;his fine book shows that there are regional differences, such as those Ihave just mentioned, between the two traditions, as well as manypatterns, sub-patterns, and elements common to them both. Here,too, as on the level of the formulaic language, we come to realize thatwe are dealing with "dialects," i.e., local narrative variations within acommon stock of narrative possibilities, the sum total of which wemight call "the language of narrative."From the analysis of texts in the Slavic regions we have learned thatnot only is variation occurring continuously, but also that it is notstrictly speaking "variation" at all (which tends to imply a fixedoriginalof some sort), but constant re-creation within regional traditionalparameters not merely of text, but also of narrative content.