#dziadyga

Interpretation of poem "Ballada dziadowska" by Bolesław Leśmian, polish poet

Poorly made translation:

Ah, Green week*!

When this time comes

All pitiful souls

Come back to our world.

Old man was knocking on the ground with his wooden crutch

His leg was cut to the knee

He was going anywhere, from anywhere

He looked for a place to rest

He stood back to the forest, on the banks of the stream

Rusałka* went out the forest

And sputtered water on his eyes so he flinched

And she started to kiss old man's crutches - one leg and wooden stilt,

What a slimy tempter.

"Why do you kiss only my shattered log?

Why do you ignore man over the knee?

Do you want to tempt my leg to sin with your caress?

Dana, dana, I'll die laughing!"

From Dobrzyń to Gołubie people say that in Green week girls take the power

She put her arm around him and twisted him like a spinning top

"Come with me, old man, my dear!"

"Stay far from me, you devil's seed,

Go away, reptile, you pest of river!"

She pulled his beard and pauper's bag,

She pulled him into monstrous streams which mean nothing to light

Before he looked away, he had wave on his back

Before he crossed himself, he left this world.

Only that decent log, that wooden crutch

Swimmer out in victory, purified from shame

liberated from disability, it floated through the waves

Dana, dana - far away

*green week - ancient Slavic fertility festival celebrated in early June and closely linked with the cult of the dead and the spring agricultural rites