The Wendish Research Exchange - 0. Introduction

Folksongs of the Wends in Upper and Lower Lusatia

In the Lillie Moerbe Caldwell Library at the Texas Wendish History Museum in Serbin, Texas is a rather large orange book called “Volkslieder der Sorben in der Ober-und Niederlausitz” or in English, “Folksongs of the Wends in Upper and Lower Lusatia.” This book is a collection of over 500 folksongs, legends and tales compiled by Leopold Haupt and Jan Arnost Smoler in 1841 and 1843 and republished in 1953 and 1992. It was a gift to the museum by Gertrude Mahling.

At the end of the second book (1843) is an appendix that includes:

1. Fairy Tales and Legends
2. Wendish Sayings
3. Way of Life
4. Superstitions
5. The Remaining Old Slavic Mythologies
6. The Dialectical differences in the Wendish Language
7. A Short Geographical and Statistical Description of Sorbian Lusatia
8. Commentary

This portion of the forum is designed to bring the translation of this priceless appendix to you. The significance of the information included in this book is that it was collected at a time when our ancestors were still in Lusatia. What you read here is what our ancestors and we lost as they adapted to life in the new world.

As I processed and read many of these reports, they were not unfamiliar to me, as if they were a part of my psyche or I had heard them before. Some of them I had heard from my mother and my aunts. Maybe you might have that same experience. If so, please consider sharing them with us. Weldon Mersiovsky