Endnotes + 

Voyt⁠—the headman of the community. ↩ + 

Two men go to the girl’s family, offering vodka in the young man’s name; if the girl drinks to him, she is regarded as affianced. ↩ + 

An annual local festival held in every parish, where those who come to church may gain an indulgence. ↩ + 

Koltun⁠—a diseased, matted condition of the hair. ↩ + 

Zloty. A Polish coin, formerly worth about seven cents. ↩ + 

Sukmana⁠—a long coat worn by Polish peasants. ↩ + 

Polish peasants, in order to keep their huts warmer in winter, put round them a sort of palisade of laths over a yard high, the space between is then stuffed with hay, dry leaves, boughs, etc., often mixed with clay. ↩ + 

Soltys⁠—the village headman. ↩ + 

Orthodox Jews are forbidden to light fires on the Sabbath, even in winter. They therefore engage some poor woman to go round and light their stoves for them on that day. ↩ + 

Dziad signifies in Polish a grandfather, an old man, or an ancestor, but is now mostly used to mean a beggar of a special type. ↩ + 

Magielon, probably from “Magellan,” means a wild adventurer, the hero of some tale of derring-do. ↩ + 

Barszcz⁠—pronounced “barshch”⁠—a soup made of sour beetroots. ↩ + 

Yellow one.⁠—A nickname sometimes given to Jews by peasants. ↩ + 

Grosz⁠—the smallest Polish coin⁠—about one-fourth of an American cent. ↩ + 

Four years in the Russian army, often in the very depths of Russia, were wont to make havoc with a Polish peasant’s mother-tongue. ↩ + 

Hop-song⁠—a very primitive sort of nuptial song. ↩ + 

Because it was a superstition: a very old one, no doubt, come down from prehistoric times, and now all but dead in Poland, if not quite so. Mickiewicz’s poem “Dziady” deals with something similar which he came across in Lithuania, about a century ago. ↩ + 

As Polish peasant-girls’ tresses are cut after the wedding, they have a little domestic party the evening before, to which only girls are invited, and the tresses are then unbound, ready to be shorn. ↩ + 

The reader should bear in mind that this book was published before the War, when only schools where Russian was taught were permitted by the government, and Polish was not learned except in secret. ↩ + 

Krupnik⁠—a drink made of vodka, hot water, honey and spices. ↩ + 

Over the potato-pits, dug deep as a protection from the cold, mounds are raised to protect them still more effectively. ↩ + 

In view of the bargaining that ensues, this must be counted as forty-five roubles. ↩ + 

This is the instrument used to make the Altar-breads (or Communion Breads well known outside the Catholic pale, but much thicker; the Catholic Altar-breads are semitransparent).⁠—In Poland, the organist goes round the parish at Christmas-time, offering packets of these breads with his good wishes, and receiving such gifts as may be offered to him. This practice naturally entails some contempt towards him on the part of peasants. ↩ + 

Our here means only, of course, “that part of the forest on which we claim to have a right to cut wood for fuel, and which the Squire cannot sell without our permission.” ↩ + 

A town close to which stands a monastery on a high hill, with the stations of the Way of the Cross, made in imitation of those in Jerusalem. After Chenstohova, this is the greatest place of pilgrimage in Poland. ↩ + 

Kolendy. An annual ceremony of blessing the house and farm and the live stock. ↩ + 

Compare this anatomical error with what Falstaff says, Henry IV, Part 2, Act IV, Sc. 3. ↩ + 

Peasants form two classes: the gospodarze, or landowners, who have at least a hut and enclosure of their own; and komorniki, or lodgers, who must work even for the lodgings they occupy. These are very poor, and looked down upon by the others. ↩ + 

Here and there in Poland, one finds villages whose inhabitants hold aloof from the other peasants, and keep strictly to themselves; types very different from the others; haughty, reserved, and generally very poor. In old days, their forefathers were ennobled and grants of land were made to them for distinguished military service; and these are the remnants of their posterity. ↩ + 

Hallow-fare⁠—in Polish, swiecone⁠—consists of various meats and pastry solemnly blessed in each house by a priest on Holy Saturday, and eaten at Eastertide, together with the consecrated Easter eggs; probably a Christianized survival of some spring festival among the heathen Slavs. ↩ + 

Zur is a sort of soup made of flour and water, mixed with bran and left to ferment till it is sour. It is then boiled with various seasonings. ↩ + 

Dyngus, called also Smigus; a popular festival, with a great deal of horseplay, drenchings and even dousings, on Easter Monday; believed to be a custom surviving from the time when the Poles (in the tenth century) embraced Christianity and were baptized en masse. ↩ + 

In England and Scotland there was once a similar custom, now become a mere “perambulation.” See Chambers’ Encyclopaedia, art. “Beating the Bounds.” ↩ + 

A Russian Government school, that is. ↩ + 

The “Sobotki” correspond to the St. John’s Eve fires. ↩ + 

The representative of the Russian Government. ↩ + 