THE she;pherd and his dog 



Phutu by A. \V. Cutler 



Note the short, thick bit of stick suspended from the dog's neck. It is meant to discourage 



any tendency to wander off 



See him on St. Stephen's Day in pic- 

 turesque garb, not riotously boisterous, 

 but gay in color and mood. Or see him 

 at a wedding arranged to suit the crops 

 and rather for the convenience of the 

 villagers. Then the festivities last from 

 one to four days. One does not wait 

 for invitation ; the going is a matter of 

 courtesy to the bride. One drinks and 

 dances, dances and drinks, sleeps under 

 the table, in the pig-stye, on the grass, 

 anywhere, to rise and dance again. Day 

 or night the music never stops, the wine 

 springs never run dry. 



The peasant girl whose consideration 

 depends upon the number of petticoats 

 she can afford to wear — I have seen one 

 with 23 — wears the jack-boots, which 

 are family heirlooms, and thus weighted 

 dances till she collapses and revives to 

 dance again (see page 351). 



There are people who go home to 

 sleep. These are the ladies variously dis- 



tinguished — among the Slovaks always 

 by a black silk hood — mothers who must 

 resign the necessities of life for its lux- 

 uries, the milking of cows, the stilHng of 

 the truculent clamor of pigs and ducks. 

 Even these latter have their share of 

 sport and spoil. They wander, especially 

 the pigs, between the feet of the dancers, 

 and if lucky upset them; if luckier still, 

 scuttle off, with memories of missed 

 kicks, in search of provender. 



There is always, save at harvest time, 

 dancing on the village green, which re- 

 vives memories of the May-pole. The 

 music is generally spontaneous and 

 comes from the Gipsies (Czigany), for 

 what Magyar will play when he can 

 dance ? At such time he literally buckets 

 in to the mad glory of the Csardas (Hun- 

 garian dances), and there prefigures the 

 national virtue of endurance in two hours 

 of violent and uninterrupted movement. 

 The Csardas is not for sedentary people, 



335 



